Researchers may have solved origin-of-life conundrum

[brooklynite]

Source: Science

The origin of life on Earth is a set of paradoxes. In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule—something like DNA or RNA—capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves. To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesize lipids.

Now, researchers say they may have solved these paradoxes. Chemists report today that a pair of simple compounds, which would have been abundant on early Earth, can give rise to a network of simple reactions that produce the three major classes of biomolecules—nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids—needed for the earliest form of life to get its start. Although the new work does not prove that this is how life started, it may eventually help explain one of the deepest mysteries in modern science.

“This is a very important paper,” says Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist and origin-of-life researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was not affiliated with the current research. “It proposes for the first time a scenario by which almost all of the essential building blocks for life could be assembled in one geological setting.”

Read more: http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/03/researchers-may-have-solved-origin-life-conundrum

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And in only 6,000 years!

[pnwmom]

1. So where did the pair of simple compounds come from?

This doesn't seem to solve the essential conundrum. How did something come out of nothing?

[mopinko]

3. they came from nuclear fusion in stars.

i dont think you understand the question.

[pnwmom]

5. Where did the stars come from?

I don't think you can answer that without getting circular.

[mopinko]

6. did you read the article?

sheesh.
where do you think they came from?

[alfredo]

11. New Jersey?

[pnwmom]

21. Where did matter come from? is the question.

[JimDandy]

26. No...Where did life (not matter) come from was the question. n/t

[Adrahil]

32. Well, there are a number of scientific and religious theories...

The scientific theories are based on, ya know, science. The religious theories are based on magic. Pick the one you like, I suppose.

I think a scientific explanation is most likely. I see scientific explanations for things work every day. I've yet to see actual magic work. But to each his own.

[whatthehey]

38. energy

and before you ask, quantum singularity.

Where did God come from never seems to get the same attention, and even fewer answers.....

[jeff47]

45. E=mc^2 runs in both directions.

And there was a lot of energy released during the big bang.

[snooper2]

53. a super-massive black hole

[NuclearDem]

14. From the molecular cloud.

[pnwmom]

24. And the molecules?

[whatthehey]

39. i'll save time

all molecules come from atoms

subatomic particles

energy

quantum singularity

nothing, they are spontaneous and uncaused, much like the decay of individual radioactive isotopes

and no nothing doesn't mean empty space. There was nothing for space to be empty in.

There was no "before" that for anything to cause or create it in - time is a function of space and matter with no independent ontology

[phil89]

57. Do you know what

an argument from ignorance is? Just because we don't know does not mean a god did it.

[Treant]

20. Remind me of this question

the next time you post about GMOs.

Previous generations of stars synthesized all the elements required to form Earth plus all the life on it.

As to where stars come from, they're gravitational agglomerations of hydrogen gas (plus leftover other elements from previous generations of stars, if any).

The original hydrogen (and about 25% helium by weight) was formed within the first few minutes of the Big Bang as temperatures cooled enough for protons to be stable, and then to fuse with other protons to create some helium without immediately getting blasted apart. Trace amounts of lithium and beryllium were also formed, but not enough to matter.

The original mass-energy to form the hydrogen (and everything else, including neutrino energy and boat tons of photons) came from the energy inherent in the collapse of the Inflationary Field.

As for the IF, it was most likely eternal and eternally expanding empty space. And continues doing so even today, popping out countless universes per microsecond.

[tavernier]

25. I understand that there was a Big Bang.

But no one ever explained what exactly blew up.

[Nihil]

35. "In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."

-- Sir Terry Pratchett, RIP

[jeff47]

47. That's because we don't know yet.

This is complicated by there not being a "before" the big bang. Time started with the big bang, so there is no "before". So you have the logically awkward "there was nothing, which exploded".

Currently, the leading theory is we're one bubble in a multiverse of bubbles, each bubble being created by a unfathomably large explosion. We don't know what causes the explosions that generates new bubbles.

[Treant]

58. Nothing blew up.

Space that would become the Universe didn't exist until just a tiny moment before the "Big Bang" (a moniker I don't care for). Not until the inflationary field expanded space into more space that would become our Universe.

The collapse of the field released all the energy that would become everything in our Universe.

However, the entire field didn't collapse (inflation has a doubling time less than its half life, so it constantly gets bigger). So inflation continues, along with the field collapse, even today. As to what those other universes look like is anybody's guess.

[Orrex]

29. Fantastic answer.

[mopinko]

37. yeah, that's what annoyed me about the question.

[FarrenH]

28. Circles return to their point of origin

Your line of questioning doesn't

http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-For-Dummies-Mark-Ryan/dp/0470089466

[Thor_MN]

8. Tide goes in...

[rickford66]

15. You can't explain that

[AllyCat]

12. Why do you think there was nothing?

The idea that there was nothing is just too biblical for me.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

36. Many of your questions can be answered by...

this video series by Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson in his lectures presented by "The Great Courses"

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-inexplicable-universe-unsolved-mysteries.html

I found the entire lecture series (6, 30 minute) on Netflix. If you do not have Netflix, there are a bunch of clips at YouTube, although there you will have to parse the information by yourself. Much easier to try at Netflix. Sign up for a 30 day free trial, watch then quit, or find someone with a Netflix subscription and have a learning party.
This is a very good lecture series designed for the everyday person to understand.

[Rex]

68. So you don't believe in the big bang as well?

"How did something come out of nothing?" You would be surprised how something comes out of nothing. Everything in the known universe came from apparently nothing.

The article explains exactly where the simple compounds come from, you have to read it to know though.

[SCVDem]

2. Fascinating!

The answers most often are basic and simple combinations.

[RKP5637]

7. As one of my professors once told me when stressing over a solution, he said,

everything in life is simple if you take it piece by piece, one step at a time. Everything, can be broken down into simple elements.
I try to remember that often.

[Locrian]

52. or the opposite...

"Consciousness is never experienced in the plural, only in the singular" - Erwin Schrödinger

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger

[RKP5637]

55. Thanks!

[RKP5637]

56. This, is a VERY interesting link. Thanks again!!!

[Locrian]

63. you're welcome...

I was actually looking for this quote:

"When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced, but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears"

a quote from Surendranath Dasgupta that I read recently when re-reading the "Tao of Physics".

I stumbled upon Schrödinger's page myself! Never knew he was such the mystic

[Orrex]

4. Oh, great. more GMOs.

[Dr. Strange]

13. If Indigo children are so special, then why not label them?

[Treant]

22. Personally I worry

Exposure of my own green essence to indigo could result in an unattractive brown.

We have no proof there's a problem, but I think we should require by law that all people label themselves. Won't somebody think of the children?

[Orrex]

30. I demand that Indigo children be certified gluten-free

[whatthehey]

40. and more importantly, find out how to identify them repeatably.

Much like any "auras" they seem to be invisible to even the most sensitive and spiritual types when tested absent of purely phsiological clues.

[SCVDem]

9. The basics of life

CHON - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen These are the basics and are abundant.

Now add a little phosphorous and sulfur to act as a molecular glue and wait for the chemical and atomic bonds to form.

Simple, huh?

[Botany]

10. Buckyballs from space!

[JimDandy]

27. I got to see 'ole Bucky before he bounced from this earthly sphere. n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

16. K&R

As an aside, I drove by a church today with a fancy electronic billboard advertising a seminar entitled "Evolution is unscientific". Yeah, sign me up

[olddad56]

17. why do we really even give a fuck?

[bvf]

23. Agreed, knowledge is a bad thing.

[olddad56]

43. how does it change your life?

[randome]

46. It satisfies one's thirst for knowledge and contributes to the overall historical community.

By such contributions, humanity as a whole advances.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[bvf]

48. You may as well ask how any pure science

has changed yours.

I take it you've never flown on a plane, taken medicine, driven a car, or otherwise taken advantage of advances in science.

The ability to do any of these started with pure, raw discovery. You're being extremely short-sighted here.

From your tone, I take it that you must not care very much about the world your descendants will inhabit, being willing instead to simply ask, "What's in it for me?"

That's the zenith of selfishness, and, might I add, willful ignorance.

[whatthehey]

49. you know that top bit on Maslow's hierarchy?

It's there. Knowledge and understanding enrich our very lives, and satisfying our curiosity and building a coherent and accurate worldview are self-affirming.

That's what this stuff is to most lay observers. Oh a few specialist scientists will actually use and develop this stuff in their careers, but for 99.9% of us that's what this stuff is for - the glorious steady acquisition of a deeper understanding of our shared reality.

[LanternWaste]

59. Why move the goalposts in the middle of a perfectly absurd question?

Why move the goalposts in the middle of a perfectly absurd question?

[Rex]

69. Well do you remember being a baby? You were a blank slate when born, just like everyone else.

However, within no time you were up and walking, pooping and babbling. In time, knowledge of your surrounding made you aware of things and you noticed yourself apart from the universe.

Without knowledge, you cannot exist in this world. Or you can, but you would be like a baby all the time.

[snooper2]

54. we give a fuck that you don't give a fuck about what the fuck

Or you can go back a couple thousand years and have your first born daughter sacrificed to satisfy the volcano god not to destroy your village


because, science and all...no fucks given!

[jtuck004]

18. "...a scenario by which almost all of the essential building blocks for life could be assembled..."

And soon, disassemble.

[Binkie The Clown]

19. But look at all the progress religion has made in the last 2000 years

explaining the origin of life.

Oh wait. Never mind.

[Adrahil]

33. We've made quite a lot, actually. Look up Szostak's work. n/t

[whatthehey]

42. What tools of religiON did he use to find things out?

He may very well be ReligiOUS (I have no clue and similar interest) but from what I know of his work he's using pretty normal secular biology to try to find answers...

[Adrahil]

44. Yes he is.... I must have misunderstood your post.

Szostak is a Nobel prize winning biologist.... I don't know what his religious affiliation, if any, is.

No religious magics in there at all. Like I said, I think I got the wrong end of the stick there! I missed the "religion" has made in your title... my fault!

[harun]

67. Religion is about the author of the Universe, origin being but one verse.

[Binkie The Clown]

71. "Religion" and "Christianity" are not synonyms.

Many religions have a lot more to say about the creation that one verse.

[bemildred]

31. Yeah. I think it happens a lot.

But it may not always be something you would recognize at first glance. It takes a large complex ecosystem to generate something as obviously weird as we are.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

34. I'm in the group that wants to know where the first particle came from

Are we in a petri dish?

[whatthehey]

41. easily enough answered

When the heat from the "Big Bang" cooled to the level at which the strong nuclear force could bind energy together into matter - about a second into existence IIRC. That's very quick incidentally. Atoms could not exist as we know them for hundreds of thousands of years - there was too much energy to keep them together.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

64. Where did the "stuff" come from that caused the Big Bang?

[Adrahil]

65. We don;t really know at this point. It's possible we may never know...

The Big Bang may have just represented a transition from a previous state, and we know that matter and energy can transform between states under the right circumstances. It may be impossible to track the history of our universe THROUGH that event.

Some folks think that unanswered questions need an answer RIGHT NOW, which is when gods become convenient. This is the so-called "god of the gaps" concept. That is, that a god can be used to answer any unanswered question, since apparently, some folks feel the need to know the absolute beginning of the universe, but the where the god came from.

Good luck with your own personal search!

[WhoWoodaKnew]

66. I'm not searching. Just curious.

[Rex]

70. A quantum singularity.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

72. What does that mean?

[Rex]

73. It means a place where all of time and space fit into one dimension.

Its how you get something from nothing.

[FSogol]

51. Well, when a single compound loves another simple compound, they...

[randome]

60. Like Dr. Frankenstein trying to create life in the laboratory...

...when all he needed to do was sleep with Elizabeth. I'm wondering if the good Dr. had some...issues.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[OxQQme]

61. Star Children

There is a strong possibility that teensy bits of our origins came in piggyback on a traveling rock that had cohabited
in orbit with its parent planet, having an advanced civilization aboard. A populated moon.
Knowing in advance of an impending collision, as it moved through space, with a much larger rock, all inhabitants were removed back to said parent. BOOM!
Left over 'bits' from previous beings seeded big planet. Voila.... US

I have a hard time with 'The BIG BANG' as that postulates that we arose out of Chaos. ( don't worry, be happenstance )

Frogs first? Gimme a break.

Apes first? Different DNA structure.


the 6k years theorem is absurd. (yes, the "!" appeared ironic)

[The2ndWheel]

62. It could've been 6,000 years

It all depends on your perspective. A year on Earth isn't a year somewhere else. Our idea of a year is just the time it takes to go around the Sun once. Not all that objective.