`Ether-drift' experiments have played a crucial role for the origin of relativity. Though, a recent re-analysis shows that those original measurements where light was still propagating in gaseous systems, differently from the modern experiments in vacuum and in solid dielectrics, indicate a small universal anisotropy which is naturally interpreted in terms of a non-local thermal gradient. We argue that this could possibly be the effect, on weakly bound gaseous matter, of the temperature gradient due to the Earth's motion within the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR). Therefore, a check with modern laser interferometers is needed to reproduce the conditions of those early measurements with today's much greater accuracy. We emphasize that an unambiguous confirmation of our interpretation would have far reaching consequences. For instance, it would also imply that all physical systems on the moving Earth are exposed to a tiny energy flow, an effect that, in principle, could induce forms of self-organization in matter.

5 pages, 3 figures