Phil in SF quoted New Under the Sun by Nancy Kress
Set in the near future, Nancy Kress’ story gives us a world increasingly hostile to …
On the other hand, some very respectable scientists, including Francis Crick and Stephen Hawking, had believed that both panspermia and pangenesis were possible: clouds of spores coming in from space on comets that had either started or influenced early life in the primordial seas.
— New Under the Sun by Nancy Kress, Therese Pieczynski (41%)
new vocabulary: panspermia & pangenesis
panspermia The theory that life on the earth originated from microorganisms or chemical precursors of life, present in outer space and able to initiate life on reaching a suitable environment.
pangenesis a disproven hypothetical mechanism of heredity in which the cells throw off particles that collect in the reproductive products or in buds so that the egg or bud contains particles from all parts of the parent