'Necropanspermia' suggested as a way of seeding life on Earth

Panspermia is a mechanism for spreading organic material throughout the galaxy, but the destructive effects of cosmic rays and ultraviolet light tend to mean most organisms would be destroyed or arrive on a new world broken and dead. Now Paul S. Wesson, a visiting researcher at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, suggests the information contained within damaged organic material could seed new life. He terms this process necropanspermia.