Titled Cause of Cambrian Explosion — Terrestrial or Cosmic?, the paper is not really about octopi, but reinvestigates the panspermia theory. (Photo: Getty Images)
The octopus, which is best encountered in a tapas bar, is in the news again. A paper published in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology on March 13 rippled through the ecosystem of magazines that operate at the border of science fiction and science fact, before bursting out into the mainstream press. Newsweek picked it up in the US, and the Telegraph and Independent in the UK. After that the article, written by 33 researchers and soundly derided by the world’s scientists, was guaranteed world fame.
Titled Cause of Cambrian Explosion — Terrestrial or Cosmic?, the paper is not really about octopi, but reinvestigates the panspermia theory. It dates back to antiquity in Europe and was formalised in the 19th century by some of the brightest names in the sciences: Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Hermann von Helmholtz, Svante Arrhenius and Lord Kelvin. In the 20th century, panspermia was championed by Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle, and people from across the spectrum of science, from Carl Sagan to Stephen Hawking, found it attractive.
It is a plausible theory. It suggests that the building blocks of life are dispersed all over the universe, and indeed, Wickramasinghe found organic compounds in interstellar dust. But the other claim of the theory, that life came to earth from space, is not necessarily correct. The paper in question essentially asks if the Cambrian explosion, a sudden acceleration of evolution which occurred about 540 million years ago, was of terrestrial or cosmic origin. Could viruses have reached the earth, perhaps by meteorites which crashed into the sea, and interacted with the DNA of the species which populated the planet at the time?
That’s where the octopi enter the picture. They are dramatically more intelligent than their nearest relations, the squids, and have extraordinary vision and sophisticated defence and propulsion mechanisms. They are smart enough to escape from laboratory tanks and scoot out the door, displaying a passion for freedom that is almost human. And so, this is not the first time that someone has wondered if their evolutionary tree was interfered with, perhaps by biological matter from something much more evolved. It takes only one more leap of the imagination to wonder if that evolved entity came from space.
However, between what is possible and what is actually going on, falls the shadow. Detractors of the idea that the earth was seeded by life from space have repeatedly shown that it is not necessary. The theory of evolution is driven quite reliably by random events in a closed system, and all it needs to get going is some complex molecules for raw materials and ionising radiation, from ultraviolet, cosmic rays or a flash of lightning.
But the human race may have begun to contribute to panspermia, in the reverse direction. Astronauts are no doubt leaving behind biological material wherever they go, and if it is shielded from the hard ultraviolet radiation in space, it stands a chance of survival. It also appears that micro-organisms from earth are swept up by weather events, and some of them seem to have adapted to life at the edge of the atmosphere. In 2005, ISRO picked up 12 forms of bacteria and six fungi from the atmosphere between 20 and 40 km up. Three of them were previously unknown and may exist only in that niche. They were named Bacillus isronensis, Bacillus aryabhattai and Janibacter hoylei (after Fred Hoyle).
Panspermia has been a staple of science fiction, including mass culture products like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, The Twilight Zone and a Dr Who episode written by Douglas Adams. In serious science fiction, Isaac Asimov repeatedly played with the idea, Ursula K LeGuin tried her hand at it, and all of Douglas Adams’ work is invested in the idea that life is elsewhere. Among the shorter classics is Surface Tension by James Blish, published in Galaxy magazine in 1952, in which humans sent out to seed earth-like planets with life crashland on a body with a primitive and hostile ecosystem. Since it is unfit for human habitation, they propagate themselves by creating a life form in their own image, on the scale of an aquatic microorganism which sporulates, but is genetically equipped to evolve rapidly for living on land. Its DNA is supplied with everything except a creation myth — because religion might confuse the species and retard its progress.
Speculations about the octopus which are now making waves look sadly unimaginative in comparison. We must gauge it on the scale of imaginativeness, because scientifically, it is unattractive. The octopus genome has been mapped, and it is generally agreed that cosmic intervention is not required to account for its complexity.
Pratik Kanjilal lectures a surprisingly tolerant public on far too many issues.