"...Let me be clear: I do not doubt that self-preservation—the inchoate striving to maintain system integrity against threat and to perpetuate existence via reproduction—is the default existential condition of living things, present and past. But the emergence of that default state needs to be explained. This is the truck-sized gap in the origins and transitions narratives that Dawkinsian selfishness obscures." (p 107)

Lyon's essay is among fourteen in a collection that followed a workshop at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research. The workshop, held in 2007, was designed to extend the research project promoted by John Maynard-Smith and Eörs Szathmáry with the publication of The Major Transitions in Evolution, in 1995. Her essay exposes a profound, essential issue. Good job, Pamela Lyon!

Traits with "non-adaptive" origins are hard to explain with the mainstream theory of evolution. But genomes with programs that are "pre-adapted" for unencountered situations are a standard prediction of cosmic ancestry. The report of this analsis concludes, ...The pervasiveness of non-adaptive traits may require a rethinking of the early origins of beneficial traits.

"Basically, we went looking on Mars because the origins-of-life options on Earth just aren't looking very good," Benner said. For whatever reason, the story is getting a lot of coverage. Of course, if life came to Earth from Mars, that is called panspermia. Welcome aboard, Steve!

In the figure, the concentric circles represent: 1, CDSs positions on the direct (blue) and reverse (red) strands; 2, CDSs with a best match within eukaryotes (orange), bacteria (green), and viruses (purple); and CDSs with MORN repeats, ankyrin repeats, and F-box domain motifs (white); CDSs with no match (gray); 3, CDSs whose protein products were identified in the proteome of purified P. salinus particles.

In cosmic ancestry, new genetic programs must be acquired by some form of horizontal gene transfer (HGT). The observed bacterial DNA was apparently acquired through an RNA intermediate. After transfer, newly acquired genes need testing and optimising. Sometimes they will turn out to be useless or even harmful. The harm may be manifest as cancer. Or perhaps cancer cells are more likely to acquire new genes. These examples are seen in somatic cells, but HGT often also reaches germline cells, as the report mentions. The news from Maryland is entirely plausible to us.