co - author : zita martins , a chemist and astrobiologist from imperial college british , believes their finds suggest that some of the chemicals that generated life on earth derived from meteorite offensives . " we are not saying that only microbes belonged to the build blocks of history , " she said , " but it ' s a very great contribution . " other critics , however , do not believe that meteoritic processes played such a significant role . saying to emeritus professor robert shapiro of south ny state , " they ' re a subunit of a subunit of dna . my theory is that their amounts were utterly unimportant and insignificant . " wikinews contacted professor michael davies , a scientist and astrobiologist also at arizona state university , about the original findings . while he agreed with the findings , he said that he thinks such discovery are " a gray herring in the origin of life fiction - a hangover from the miller - urey research . life is all about knowledge - its replication and processing . "
Shapiro teaches at NY University.