One fewer move: 1. f3 e4 2. g4 Qh4++ shit!

*grumblegrumble* Mac keyboard *grumblegrumble* insensitive clod *grumble*

Well, I agree that one of my first thoughts was that glycine is the simplest amino acid and therefore not quite as exciting as finding one or more of the other amino acids. However, it's important to remember that the important characteristic of amino acids is their ability to polymerize via condensation reaction of the amino group of one with the carboxyl group of another. The only thing that distinguishes glycine from the other amino acids (except for proline) is that it "only" has a H for its R group. All it takes is substitution of a methyl group at that position and suddenly you have alanine, one of the most abundant amino acids found in proteins.

I would have agreed with you before I RTFA. The authors acknowledged contamination as a confounding factor, and tested for it by isotopic analysis of the C13:C12 ratio, where glycine from space is expected to have a greater amount of C13. This is precisely what they found, allowing them to conclude that the glycine did, in fact, come from the comet.

That's just it, speciation occurs when a subset of the population is no longer able to mate with the remainder of the population. Four modes through which this can occur are nicely covered in the Wikipedia article on speciation.

Well...fruit flies have been shown to be capable of learning by classical conditioning. Some may not consider this to be true pain, but they will avoid an odor that has been previously paired with an electric shock.

This kind of language abuse makes my head literally explode!