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Published online 14 November 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news061113-9
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Was life on Earth inevitable?
Life may be the ultimate in planetary stress relief, a new theory claims.
The appearance of life on Earth seems to face so many obstacles — sourcing the right ingredients, for example, and arranging them into living things (while being bombarded by meteorites) — that scientists often feel forced to regard it as almost miraculous. Now two US researchers suggest that, on the contrary, it may have been inevitable.
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