Davide Castelvecchi: Chemists say they have solved a crucial problem in a theory of life’s beginnings, by demonstrating that RNA molecules can link short chains of amino acids together.
Tag: RNA world
Forthcoming book: “RNA is the cornerstone of cell biology”
Remember the people who used to say, of their DNA, “This is me”? Didn’t wear well, that.
Why are “skeptics” the most gullible people around?
Miller: The irony of Novella’s pollyannish description of the research is that he is a host of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast… If Novella had consistently applied his hype-detection tools to the press release from the University of Tokyo, he would have described the [origin of life] research in dramatically different terms.
So why aren’t the RNA OOL researchers in the running for the Nobel Prize?
When a story is the one people need to believe, they don’t ask for detailed demonstrations of how it could have happened that way. Chances are, they don’t even want them because then they would be responsible for knowing that it didn’t really happen.
Another “hint” of a possible origin of life…
All these “hints” are simply trying to explain how life might have got started without any information at all. But you know what they say: When you are in a hole, KEEP digging! Dig harder, harder…
The chemoton: Origin of life as a political issue?
At RealClearScience: “It [the chemoton] was announced to the world in Hungarian, at a time when Hungary was behind the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. The chemoton would not reach English readers until 2003, when RNA world was firmly entrenched as the leading theory of life’s origins.”
So RNA world, the five-star hotel of OOL theories, isn’t panning out?
We were told it was the surest thing in origin of life theories.
We are told: The recipe for the origin of life has been revised
Scientists revising their origin of life theories is—in the present climate—somewhat like fiction writers revising their novels. Nothing in the world wrong with it. But let’s be clear what level of real-world information we are talking about.
Astonishing! Astrophysicist determines that the odds are against a random origin of life
One might ask why he thinks that “science” must find a random origin for life. Who decided that life originated randomly? What if it did not? Is science still committed to finding a random origin?
What? A skeptical view of RNA world? The five-star hotel of origin of life theories?
Why is a mere science writer now allowed to dump on the gold standard of OOL theories? Stand by…
Researchers: Homogenous RNA could emerge from a primordial mess
Friends doubt that the random polymerizing of nucleotides is going to explain the origin of information needed for “RNA genomes” to come into existence.
Researchers: Genetic code emerging in an RNA world faces “insuperable problems”
Note: “ The hypothetical RNA World does not furnish an adequate basis for explaining how this system came into being, principles of self-organisation that transcend Darwinian natural selection furnish an unexpectedly robust basis for a rapid, concerted transition to genetic coding from a peptide·RNA world.”
NASA is investing more in pre-biotic chemistry
Georgia Tech biochemist Loren Williams was recently named co-leader of NASA’s new consortium to tackle origin of life: Did life on Earth originate in Darwin’s warm little pond, on a sunbaked shore, or where hot waters vent into the deep ocean? And could a similar emergence have played out on other bodies in our solar Read More…
Rob Sheldon on the Canadian lab “solving” the origin-of-life problem
Only a physicist could look at an insoluble biochemistry problem and say, “We’ve built a chamber which we can change the temperature and gas content. PV=nRT, and poof!