Life outside of Earth has spawned endless interest, but less public interest seems to be given to how life on Earth began 3 to 4 billion years ago. But the two topics, it turns out, might be more connected than one would believe–in fact, it’s possible that life on Earth really began outside of Earth, on Mars.

At this year’s Goldschmidt conference in Florence, Steve Benner, a molecular biophysicist and biochemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution will present this idea to an audience of geologists. 

And Smithsonian blogger Natasha Geiling was wise enough to link to Dave Deamer's article here, thus getting some free publicity as a reward for her keen insight.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/08/did-life-come-to-earth-f...