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Baruch Blumberg - Cells and their possible origins (58/80)

21 views · Published 30 June 2017 · 2:38 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Science & Technology

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To hear more of Baruch Blumberg’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QedXwz9QEXY&list=PLVV0r6CmEsFyPwAEJ9YaYAsj3ANqc9teW

The late Baruch Blumberg (1925-2011) was an American scientist and doctor whose most significant contributions to medicine include the identification of the Hepatitis B virus. He was one of three co-recipients of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. [Listener: Rebecca Blanchard; date recorded: 2007]

TRANSCRIPT: Well, there's a lot of interest in, you know, how… how you make a cell and there are constituents in space that… that form cells, you know, if you define a cell as… as something that has an inside and an outside, it's a big characteristic of a cell, it's got an inside and an outside and it's got, you know, another characteristic, it has a specific semi-permeable, or it has semi-permeability. In other words, there are places where things can get in and out but they're quite specific, not everything can get in through every pore. That's what… from a good deal of contemporary research. Well, they're kind of manufacturing these cells from space-available constituents. This idea that these things get kind of formed from on earth or even conceivably in space. Well, there's another important aspect of it and that is this question of whether life came from elsewhere. Now, that doesn't tell you about the origin of life but it does tell you that that remains a real possibility and this idea of… of life emerging from it, it's been around for quite a long time; you actually find it in religious beliefs and mythic notions, and science fiction, you know, a big thing in science fiction. So, the question is, how… how would it get here? You know, it's hard to believe you can have… you can have DNA floating through space but, as a matter of fact, there have been experiments done. Rocco Mancinelli, a colleague of mine, working with the European Space Agency; you can actually put bacteria in a… in a container, put it outside a… a satellite or space ship, the shuttle, and… or a sounding rocket, you know, something goes up and comes down, and open it and expose it. Well, bacteria, some survive. The probability is that if life ever did come here or came from here and went elsewhere, it would be inside a meteorite because the inside of those meteorites are pretty protected and they don't get very hot because the outer surfaces ablate and the piece that lands is actually fairly cool. It's probably 40 centigrade, tops.

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