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doi:10.1038/nindia.2008.243; Published online 18 July 2008

Research highlight

Life in a grain of cosmic dust

Biplab Das

New research has deciphered how floating dust clouds in space churn out basic molecules essential for the formation of life on an earth-like planet. With computer-based simulation studies, the research team has found that grains in interstellar dust cloud play host to reactions that cook up hydrogen, water and methyl alcohol (methanol)1.