Origin Of Life

From Nature: Dogic’s team created a new kind of liquid crystal. Unlike the molecules in standard liquid-crystal displays, which passively form patterns in response to electric fields, Dogic’s components were active. They propelled themselves, taking energy from their environment — in this case, from ATP. And they formed patterns spontaneously, thanks to the collective behaviour of thousands of units moving independently. These are the hallmarks of systems that physicists call active matter, which have become a major subject of research in the past few years. Examples abound in the natural world — among them the leaderless but coherent flocking of birds and the flowing, structure-forming cytoskeletons of cells. Based on laboratory work, Experimentalists are only beginning to gain control of Read More ›

From Washington Post: Startling new finding: 600 million years ago, a biological mishap changed everything Zounds. Most mishaps don’t change everything by introducing vast new realms of complexity. As in: Bill Gates stumbled in his garage one day, and behold, Windows! In a paper published in the open-access journal eLife this week, researchers say they have pinpointed what may well be one of evolution’s greatest copy mess-ups yet: the mutation that allowed our ancient protozoa predecessors to evolve into complex, multi-cellular organisms. Thanks to this mutation — which was not solely responsible for the leap out of single-cellular life, but without which you, your dog and every creature large enough to be seen without a microscope might not be around Read More ›

From a brief review in Scientific American of A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life (Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II, Norton, 2015): No scientific quandary is as confounding, controversial or important as the question of how life began, argue journalist Mesler and geochemist Cleaves. “It touches upon not only how we came to be, but why we came to be,” they write. “It is, in a sense, the ultimate question.”More. Maybe. How much of the problem is rather this: The search is not so much for what happened as for what happened that is consistent with a naturalist perspective? Thus we hear about chance, law, self-organization (which is actually not completely Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Oxygen is crucial for the existence of animals on Earth. But, an increase in oxygen did not apparently lead to the rise of the first animals. New research shows that 1.4 billion years ago there was enough oxygen for animals — and yet over 800 million years went by before the first animals appeared on Earth. Animals evolved by about 600 million years ago, which was late in Earth’s history. The late evolution of animals, and the fact that oxygen is central for animal respiration, has led to the widely promoted idea that animal evolution corresponded with a late a rise in atmospheric oxygen concentrations. “But sufficient oxygen in itself does not seem to be enough for animals Read More ›

Lights. Camera. Action. Well, admit it, it does sound like a great sci-fi premise. From ScienceDaily: On the early Earth, light came not only from the sun but also from the incessant bombardment of fireball meteorites continually striking the planet. Now, the recent work of University of South Florida (USF) associate professor of geology Matthew Pasek, USF researcher Maheen Gull, and colleagues at Georgia Institute of Technology, has demonstrated that these meteorites may have carried within them an extraterrestrial mineral that, as it corroded in water on Earth, could have provided the essential chemical spark leading to the birth of biological life on the planet. … In a recent study appearing in Nature Publishing Group’s Scientific Reports, the researchers focused Read More ›

Not because of a change in animal behaviour? From ScienceDaily: Before now it was not known how quickly Earth’s oceans and atmosphere became oxygenated and if animal life expanded before or after oxygen levels rose. The new study, published in Nature Communications, shows the increase began significantly earlier than previously thought and occurred in fits and starts spread over a vast period. It is therefore likely that early animal evolution was kick-started by increased amounts of oxygen, rather than a change in animal behaviour leading to oxygenation. Co-author Prof. David Catling (University of Washington Earth and Space Sciences), added: “Oxygen was like a slow fuse to the explosion of animal life. Around 635 Ma, enough oxygen probably existed to support Read More ›

From New Scientist: 3 billion-year-old fossils show early microbes lived in cavities They looked much like bacteria today, and the cavities protected them. The find creates hope for life on Mars. “The record of Archaean microfossils is sparse and controversial,” says Birger Rasmussen at Curtin University, Australia, who previously reported the discovery of cavity-dwelling microbes in 2.7 billion-year-old sediments in Australia. “This is an exciting find as it extends the record of possible life in this habitat a further 500 million years.” More. Hmmm. More time for life, less for Darwin. See also: Ocean toxicity slowed rapid evolution of complex life? and What we know and don’t know about the origin of life Follow UD News at Twitter!

From ScienceDaily: By examining rocks at the bottom of ancient oceans, an international group of researchers has revealed that arsenic concentrations in the oceans have varied greatly over time. But also that in the very early oceans, arsenic co-varied with the rise of atmospheric oxygen and coincided with the coming and going of global glaciations, researchers say. … The authors infer — from the way modern photosynthetic organisms react to changing marine arsenic concentrations — that this event was due to widespread ocean toxicity resulting from the release of toxic elements into the oceans when the ice melted. A similar low and high arsenic content accompanied the coming and going of global glaciations at around 0.7 billion years ago, which Read More ›

I ran across a vid of a proposal developed by Martin Marietta to explore Mars, towards settlement (and terraforming?): What I find highly interesting is the motivations given. In addition to the Mars colonisation idea, there seems to be hope that finding “independent” life on Mars would show life must be common in the universe. Of course, we will recall the 1990’s dust up over Nasa’s announcement of life on a meteorite held to have come from Mars. (Cf Wiki here.) Which, brings to mind Astronomer and Old Earth Creationist Hugh Ross’ thought that impacts on Earth would spread life-bearing rocks far and wide across the solar system. *His initial response to the Nasa announcement is here.) But, too, there Read More ›

So whose dictation is it taking? From ScienceDaily: Looking Back 3.8 Billion Years Into the Root of the ‘Tree of Life’ … NASA-funded researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are tapping information found in the cells of all life on Earth, and using it to trace life’s evolution. They have learned that life is a master stenographer — writing, rewriting and recording its history in elaborate biological structures. Nw her is an interesting admission: “The ribosome recorded its history,” said Williams. “It accreted and got bigger and bigger over time. But the older parts were continually frozen after they accreted, just like the rings of a tree. As long as that tree lives, the inner rings will not change. Read More ›

In 1996, Lehigh University professor of biochemistry, Michael Behe, published his first book Darwin’s Black Box, which famously advanced the concept of irreducible complexity (IC) to prominent status in the conversation of design in biology. In his book, Professor Behe described irreducible complexity as: A single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. In illustrating his point, Behe used the idea of a simple mousetrap — with its base and spring and holding bar — as an example of an IC system, where the removal of any of these parts would render the mousetrap incapable of its Read More ›

From ScienceDaily: Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere emerged in whiffs from a kind of cyanobacteria in shallow oceans around 2.5 billion years ago, according to new research. … “The onset of Earth’s surface oxygenation was likely a complex process characterized by multiple whiffs of oxygen until a tipping point was crossed,” said Brian Kendall, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo. “Until now, we haven’t been able to tell whether oxygen concentrations 2.5 billion years ago were stable or not. These new data provide a much more conclusive answer to that question.” The new data supports a hypothesis proposed by Anbar and his team in 2007. In Western Australia, they found preliminary evidence of these oxygen whiffs Read More ›

Physical organic chemist Michael Page asks that at The Conversation: Living systems are chemically based and therefore must obey the laws of science. Life appears to be just a series of chemical reactions – and we now understand how these reactions work at the molecular level. So surely this should tell us how life came about? But what are the laws of science? We are still looking for dark matter, and some would wish away the current Higgs boson. The assumption that early life forms must have been similar to what we see today may be preventing us from answering this question. It’s possible that there were many unsuccessful precursors that bore little resemblance to present-day life. There has been Read More ›

Over on a recent thread, we witnessed some flailing about with respect to abiogenesis (see comments 374-376). Thoroughly confused about critical distinctions, such as the difference between deterministic forces and contingent possibilities, some seem to think that the fact that “nature forms stars and planets” means that nature can do just about anything. No need to ask any hard questions, kids! Just close your eyes and imagine the possibilities. This is what so much of the materialistic abiogenesis creation story amounts to. I have posted essentially this challenge before, but for Zachriel and anyone else who thinks materialistic abiogenesis is anything more than a laughable made-up story, here it is again: —– For purposes of this challenge, I’m willing to Read More ›

From Smithsonian: Ancient volcanic rocks may have preserved tiny samples of the planet’s original moisture A new analysis in Science suggests that at least some of Earth’s current moisture derives from water-soaked dust particles trapped deep inside during the planet’s formation. … The ratio of deuterium to hydrogen in the universe was fixed shortly after the Big Bang. But various processes can alter that ratio in certain locations. On Earth, hydrogen can be stripped out of the atmosphere by the solar wind, and deuterium can be added through cometary impacts. More. In the most ancient rocks, researchers found some of the lowest ratios of deuterium to hydrogen ever recorded, suggesting that water was there from the beginning. From New Scientist: Read More ›