Origin Of Life

Cells are the fundamental units of life. The genome sequence of a cell may be thought of as its operating system. It carries the code that specifies all of the genetic functions of the cell, which in turn determine the cellular chemistry, structure, replication, and other characteristics. Each genome contains instructions for universal functions that are common to all forms of life, as well as instructions that are specific to the particular species. The genome is dependent on the functions of the cell cytoplasm for its expression. In turn, the properties of the cytoplasm are determined by the instructions encoded in the genome.  – Venter Institute, 2016 Sixty-three years ago Francis Crick wrote a letter to his 12 year-old son, Read More ›

From Washington Post: For 3 billion years, life on Earth was only home to water-dwelling, single-celled organisms like bacteria. But suddenly, multicellular life ballooned, knocking over the first domino in an evolutionary cascade that would one day allow you — yes, you — to exist and think and even read stuff on the Internet. Scientists think that until 500 million years ago, life on Earth fell victim to high-energy blasts from the sun, which at the time contained a lot more of the cell-killing gamma, ultraviolet and x-rays than it does today. The atmosphere then was too thin to fully protect our single-celled ancestors, whose DNA would have been damaged by such powerful rays. That kept them from becoming more Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Researchers have for the first time shown that ribose, a sugar that is one of the building blocks of genetic material in living organisms, may have formed in cometary ices. Origin of life is a somewhat unusual field for a science in that “may have” is equivalent to a discovery. Maybe that’s why James Tour has no time for it. As a first step, an artificial comet was produced at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale. By placing a representative mixture of water (H2O), methanol (CH3OH) and ammonia (NH3) in a high vacuum chamber at — 200 ̊C, the astrophysicists simulated the formation of dust grains coated with ice, the raw material of comets. … Several sugars were detected, including Read More ›

Following on James Tour on the hypocrisy of origin of life conjectures –  updated: From James Tour, T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, as well as Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University, with over 590 research publications and over 100 patents: (beginning at 3:05) in his March 3, 2016 lecture titled “The Origin of Life: An Inside Story,” here: We have no idea how the molecules that compose living systems could have been devised such that they would work in concert to fulfill biology’s functions. We have no idea how the basic set of molecules, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids, and proteins, were made and how they could have coupled into Read More ›

More on James Tour here: A prominent chemist who was recognized this year as one of the 50 most influential scientists in the world says most scientists do not understand how evolution could explain the existence of life. Dr. James Tour is a well-known professor at Rice University, specializing in chemistry, nanoengineering, and computer science. Over the last 30 years, Tour has authored over 500 research publications, and he was recognized as one of “The 50 Most Influential Scientists in the World Today” by TheBestSchools.org. Tour has also received awards and recognitions from the American Chemical Society, Thomson Reuters, Honda, NASA, and others. See also: A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution (also Read More ›

From The Scientist: A longtime consultant to NASA and a member of the scientific advisory committee for Biosphere 2 (the largest-ever enclosed ecosystem), Morowitz was a strong advocate for a theory of emergence of life from chemical and physical principles. In the 1983 McLean v. Arkansas case over teaching creationism in schools, he provided an expert opinion, testifying in front of the court that the creationist view of life’s origins has no basis in science. More. Also: New York Times: Once, when he received a birthday card that assessed a human body’s raw materials at only 97 cents, he recalculated the cost based on synthesized ingredients from a biochemical company catalog and re-evaluated his worth at more than $6 million. Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Their age is estimated to be more than 555 million years old, placing the fossils in the last part of Precambrian times, called the Ediacaran Period. They provide a crucial view of Earth’s earliest evolution of multicellular life, which scientists now think started millions of years earlier than previously thought. … Scientists think that an explosion of animal diversity and complexity began near the start of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago. But Dornbos said this fossil find is the latest example of multicellular life forms appearing in the preceding Ediacaran Period. More. Paper. (public access) As the authors say, this helps us understand more about the history of life. What they don’t say is that Read More ›

From Nautilus: A collection of metal atoms called the “metallome” helped drive evolution. The metallome is even changing how we think about life on other planets. The energy required to drive cyclic chemical reactions that are self-replicating—what we might call “life”—could come from reactions of the metallic elements. Our search for extraterrestrial life shouldn’t be restricted to a search for remnants of complex organic molecules. There’s another clear target, with a rather appropriately sci-fi ring to it: Heavy metals in space.More. If only life didn’t need to be alive, it would all be so much simpler. See also: Maybe if we throw enough models at the origin of life… some of them will stick? Follow UD News at Twitter!

Jonathan Wells, author of The Myth of Junk DNA , writes to say, re Mycoplasma mycoides Just Destroyed Evolution Like Venter’s earlier work, this is interesting. But as Hunter has pointed out, the minimal genome still has too much specified complexity to be explained by unguided evolution. Mycoplasma, the organism used by Venter’s lab, is parasitic or saprophytic. That is, it lives off other organisms or off organic waste from other organisms. In other words, it requires other living things for its survival. If anyone wants to infer anything about the origin of life from Venter’s minimal genome, they first have to explain the origin of other, more complex life forms. (Indeed, the stripped-down Mycoplasma made by Venter requires full Read More ›

My friend Steve used to have an old Pontiac that was in shambles. Somewhere along the line the front bumper had fallen off, and somebody welded on an I-beam as a replacement. It was a rust bucket that was literally falling apart, but the funny things was, that old car just kept on running, seemingly on inertia. A hose might spring a leak or a belt might snap, but it kept on running. Steve’s Pontiac had become a fixture—for better or worse, it had been running for decades and it was unbelievable that it would ever stop. Why breakdown now, it could always run one more day.  Read more

Call it Mycoplasma mycoides lite—researchers have established what is approximately a minimal organism by removing about have of the genes from theMycoplasma mycoidesgenome. The result is a set of 473 genes which, collectively, appear to be required for any kind of reasonable performance. That is an enormous level of complexity. Furthermore, about one third of that minimal gene set is of unknown function. As J. Craig Venter put it, “We’re showing how complex life is, even in the simplest of organisms. These findings are very humbling.”  Read more

First Iceball Earth is back (as a theory), now the volcanic vent as well. Seems to be Origin of Life Week around here. From Quanta: The biochemist David Deamer proposes that life evolved from a collection of interacting molecules, probably in a pool in the shadow of a volcano. Deamer (Ucal Santa Cruz) … thinks that volcanic landmasses similar to those in Iceland today would have made a hospitable birthplace for his proto-cells. Freshwater pools scattered across steamy hydrothermal fields would be subject to regular rounds of heating and cooling. That cycle could have concentrated the necessary ingredients — including both lipids and the building blocks for RNA — and provided the energy needed to stitch those building blocks into Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Many researchers believe that Earth’s early oceans were very hot, reaching 80̊ Celsius, and that life originated in these conditions. New findings may prove the opposite to be true. Harald Furnes, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Earth Science, has analysed volcanic and sedimentary rocks in the Barberton Greenstone Belt, South Africa. The volcanic rocks were deposited at depths of 2 to 4 kilometres. “We have found evidence that the climate 3.5 billion years ago was a cold environment,” says Furnes. … Furnes thinks some researchers may have difficulties accepting the new knowledge of an early, cold Earth. A paradigm shift in Earth Science is not to be expected, but he thinks the climate of the early earth Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Today, most researchers agree that the oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere happened in two major steps: the first during the so-called Great Oxidation Event about 2.5-2.4 billion years ago, and the second during the Late Neoproterozoic Era around 750 to 540 million years ago. The latter is thought to have been the cause for the emergence of animals during the so-called ‘Cambrian explosion’ around 540 to 520 million years ago. An international team of researchers led by Professor Robert Frei from the Department of Geoscience and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen has just released a study indicating evidence for the presence of small concentrations of oxygen on Earth already 3.8 billion years ago. The researchers analysed Read More ›