co - author professor zita martins , a chemist and astrobiologist from imperial institute london , believes their finds suggests that some of the chemicals that generated life on earth came from meteorite bombardment . " we are not saying that only earth added to the building stone of mankind , " she continued , " but it ' s a very huge claim . " other scientists , however , do not say that meteoritic chemicals played such a significant component . according to visiting professor robert friedman of the haven university , " they ' re a subunit of a subunit of dna . my opinion is that their amounts were utterly unimportant and insignificant . " wikinews contacted john paul davies , a physicist and astrobiologist presently at arizona state university , about the scientific findings . while he agreed with the findings , he admitted that he thinks such publications are " a det herring in the origin of life story - a hangover from the williams - urey accident . life is all about information - its replication and processing . "
Shapiro teaches at NY University.