Origin Of Life

Except that he doesn’t. In “Slaves to evolution,” (ABC Science 06/09/2011) Bernie Hobbs explains it all for you:

Two billion-odd years ago, one of the most important meals in history took place. One bacterium swallowed another one. But instead of being digested, the swallowee survived. And it kept doing what it had always done: using oxygen to rip apart food molecules, and then using the energy released to make ATP. So the bacteria that did the swallowing suddenly had this little lump inside it that leaked ATP, which the swallower could use to power its own cellular reactions. It was a match made in thermodynamic heaven.

And this crazy hybrid was the great (x10n) grandmother cell that all eukaryotic cells evolved from. The mitochondria in your cells, mine and every plant, animal and fungi on the planet are descendents of that meal. It’s like slavery, but with benefits. Read More ›

Here’s David Tyler at Access Research Network (05/31/11), on “Non-marine life throughout the Neoproterozic”:

What do these findings mean for our understanding of life on the Precambrian Earth? Dr Charles Wellman, an author of the paper, is quoted by ScienceDaily as saying:

“It is generally considered that life originated in the ocean and that the important developments in the early evolution of life took place in the marine environment: the origin of prokaryotes, eukaryotes, sex and multicellularity. During this time the continents are often considered to have been essentially barren of life — or at the most with an insignificant microbial biota dominated by cyanobacteria. We have discovered evidence for complex life on land from 1 billion year old deposits from Scotland. This suggests that life on land at this time was more abundant and complex than anticipated. It also opens the intriguing possibility that some of the major events in the early history of life may have taken place on land and not entirely within the marine realm.” Read More ›

In “Critics take aim at NASA ‘arsenic life’ study” (May 27, 2011), CBC News tells us

Eight articles questioning a controversial study claiming that some bacteria can use the normally toxic substance arsenic to build DNA have been published in the journal Science.The study, published last December in Science, was led by NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe-Simon and claimed that bacteria from a lake in California were able to substitute arsenic for phosphorus, normally an essential ingredient in DNA, fats and proteins.

At issue was a new strain of a new strain of Halomonadaceae bacteria from Mono Lake, Calif., that seemed to use arsenic instead of phosphorus, which is essential for DNA, fats, and proteins. This fact, if it is a fact, was immediately drafted as an origin of life theory. Then, in an unusual move, scientists began to ask questions as if an OOL theory deserved to be taken seriously. At which point … Read More ›

This one, where Harvard pledged $1 million annually in 2005. One gets that impression from Sophie Wharton’s “Searching for life’s origins, on Earth and beyond”, Undergraduate Research Journal ( Spring 2009): After the $8 billion hit that Harvard’s endowment took a few months ago, there is fear that funding to the Origins of Life Initiative may suffer too. The progress of the Initiative is hindered by the lack of a dedicated space for labs, which are currently scattered throughout the University. Nevertheless, the development of a new science campus in Allston – on the other side of the Charles River – offers a promising solution. But it’s not hard to see what the problem is: Another group in the Initiative Read More ›

Where people who are prepared to blow $1 million a year on discovering the origin of life … when we hardly have a clue what to look for: Confidence in progress has now been replaced by postulation of change. Progress is achieved and can be welcomed, but change just happens and must be adjusted to. “Adjusting to change” is now the unofficial motto of Harvard, mutabilitas instead of veritas. To adjust, the new Harvard must avoid adherence to any principle that does not change, even liberal principle. Yet in fact it has three principles: diversity, choice, and equality. To respect change, diversity must serve to overcome stereotypes, though stereotypes are necessary to diversity. How else is a Midwesterner diverse if Read More ›

From “Young Graphite in Old Rocks Challenges the Earliest Signs of Life” (ScienceDaily, May 21, 2011) we learn:

The team — which includes researchers from Boston College, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the Naval Research Laboratory — says new evidence from Canada’s Hudson Bay region shows carbonaceous particles are millions of years younger than the rock in which they’re found, pointing to the likelihood that the carbon was mixed in with the metamorphic rock later than the rock’s earliest formation — estimated to be 3.8 to 4.2 billion years ago.

That’s means Read More ›

At ScienceDaily we learn that “New Evidence Shows Mobile Animals Could Have Evolved Much Earlier Than Previously Thought” (May 18, 2011): A University of Alberta-led research team has discovered that billions of years before life [animals?] evolved in the oceans, thin layers of microbial matter in shallow water produced enough oxygen to support tiny, mobile life forms. The researchers say worm-like creatures could have lived on the oxygen produced by photosynthetic microbial material, even though oxygen concentrations in the surrounding water were not high enough to support life. Worm tracks (trace fossils) have been found from 555 million years ago, and it’s suggested that the worms could have got their oxygen from photosynthetic biomats at a time when it was Read More ›

In “Intelligent Design Making Headway into Texas Public Schools”, Eryn Sun reports at Christian Post (May. 13 2011): Reading the following, I am not sure that’s good news: Read More ›

It is important to remember that as far as science knows, the law of biogenesis, life only arises from life, is valid. Any statement that begins, “It’s possible that life originated from non-life by … ” is misstated from a probability point of view since non-zero probability has never been proved. (p. 38) – Donald E. Johnson, author of Probability’s Nature And Nature’s Probability – Lite (2009) Alternatively: Pasteur was wrong. Spontaneous generation happens, so that “pasteurized” milk you buy isn’t safe. Note: Dr. Johnson has agreed to send 10 copies of his book for future contests. Details to follow.

“Asteroids make life’s raw materials” by Michael Marshall asks (New Scientist, 04 May 2011), offering as much evidence as can be mustered from the Murchison meteorite:

The asteroid in question fell to Earth on 28 September 1969, landing on the outskirts of the village of Murchison in Victoria, Australia. Tests showed it was laced with amino acids and some of the chemicals found in our genetic material. [ … ] Read More ›

The controversial textbook, The Design of Life came up recently. (Did an origin of life researcher actually read it? Stunner.)

Instead of the approved textspeak about how hardworking scientists are slowly piecing together the origin of life, it contains eye-openers like these: Read More ›

Some wonder. A friend of Uncommon Descent wrote recently to say that

In a lecture (November 2008) at Case Western University, prominent origin of life researcher Robert Hazen, author of Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origin, essentially admits that the burden of proof is on those who oppose ID, not those who propose it.

Some attribute such admissions to the dead stall of origin of life research for 150 years – except that popular media perpetually conflate bright ideas with concrete findings.

Here are some quotations from the transcript: Read More ›

In “Did deadly formaldehyde give life to Earth?”, Clara Moskowitz tells us, “Scientists test the theory in their lab, and say the answer is most likely ‘yes’” (MSNBC4/4/2011): “We may owe our existence on this planet to interstellar formaldehyde,” said researcher George Cody of the Geophysical Laboratory at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., in a statement. “And what’s ironic about it is that formaldehyde is poisonous to life on Earth.” Cody and his collaborators, Conel Alexander and Larry Nittler of Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, studied carbon-containing meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites for clues about where their organic compounds originated.[ … ] Since this chemical reaction could have occurred naturally, based on what scientists know of the early Read More ›

Here, well-known physicist author Paul Davies acknowledges that we have no idea how life began. However, the TalkOrigins forces of certainty are ever at work, stomping on reasonable doubt. Of course, rubes doubt the TalkOrigins “donut hole” explanations. But that just proves they are rubes. Rubes never realize that the hole is the very best part of the donut, full of nutritional value. They keep wanting the stuff on the outside of the hole, for no good reason.

Yes, the Bunny is dead, but his lawyers aren’t, see?

You may have heard this one, from Dennis Overbye (New York Times, February 21, 2011):

Using mail-order snippets of DNA, Dr. Venter and his colleagues stitched together the million-letter genetic code of a bacterium of a goat parasite last year and inserted it into another bacterium’s cell, where it took over, churning out blue-stained copies of itself. Dr. Venter advertised his genome as the wave of future migration to the stars. Send a kit of chemicals and a digitized genome across space.”We’ll create panspermia if it didn’t already exist,” he said.

The new genome included what Dr. Venter called a watermark. Along with the names of the researchers were three quotations, from the author James Joyce; Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the building of the atomic bomb; and the Caltech physicist Richard Feynman: “What I cannot build, I do not understand.”

– “A Romp Into Theories of the Cradle of Life”

Then Irish novelist James Joyce’s estate threatened to sue, because Venter had allegedly violated Joyce’s copyright.

And Caltech called to complain that Read More ›