"creating" Life?

[hazelm]

I trust that the chemists - who do  know all these chemical terms - will enlighten us as to its value.  Scientists claim to have found the recipe that may have jump-started life on Earth.   Have we gotten beyond seas and volcanoes now?  Or are we on our way to seas and volcanoes?   In other words, it's confusing.

 

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/chemists-find-recipe-may-have-jump-started-life-earth?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-10-18&et_rid=432455128&et_cid=2437392

Edited October 19, 2018 by hazelm

[exchemist]

I trust that the chemists - who do  know all these chemical terms - will enlighten us as to its value.  Scientists claim to have found the recipe that may have jump-started life on Earth.   Have we gotten beyond seas and volcanoes now?  Or are we on our way to seas and volcanoes?   In other words, it's confusing.

 

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/chemists-find-recipe-may-have-jump-started-life-earth?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-10-18&et_rid=432455128&et_cid=2437392

As I read it the essence of the discovery is a way to make both the two pyrimidine and the two purine types of base in the same conditions, whereas previously it seemed you needed different conditions to make  each type.

 

Obviously if one is looking for a primordial environment in which all 4 types can have formed spontaneously, so that they can go on to react together to produce RNA, this poses a problem. But if you can find conditions in which all 4 are produced together, the problem goes away. And this is what has now been done.

 

The interesting thing is the catalysts used: sulphur analogues of alcohols, known as thiols,  and Fe and Ni cations (+ve charged ions). These are all likely to be available around volcanic vents.   

Edited October 19, 2018 by exchemist

[hazelm]

As I read it the essence of the discovery is a way to make both the two pyrimidine and the two purine types of base in the same conditions, whereas previously it seemed you needed different conditions to make  each type.

 

Obviously if one is looking for a primordial environment in which all 4 types can have formed spontaneously, so that they can go on to react together to produce RNA, this poses a problem. But if you can find conditions in which all 4 are produced together, the problem goes away. And this is what has now been done.

 

The interesting thing is the catalysts used: sulphur analogues of alcohols, known as thiols,  and Fe and Ni cations (+ve charged ions). These are all likely to be available around volcanic vents.   

I like your last sentence.  I do prefer the volcanic origin.  Seems to suit mankind.  Then thank you for the summary and explanation.  That makes sense to a non-chemist trying to dig out the story without seeing the chemicals. 

[exchemist]

I like your last sentence.  I do prefer the volcanic origin.  Seems to suit mankind.  Then thank you for the summary and explanation.  That makes sense to a non-chemist trying to dig out the story without seeing the chemicals. 

To be accurate, I added the bit about volcanic vents. But you do certainly get some heavy metals and you do get reduced sulphur compounds, so thiols not much of a stretch.  I got corrected somewhere recently, that my previous understanding about life most likely originating around deep sea hot water vents is now rather out of date. Terrestrial hot volcanic pools seem to be the current favourite. 

[hazelm]

To be accurate, I added the bit about volcanic vents. But you do certainly get some heavy metals and you do get reduced sulphur compounds, so thiols not much of a stretch.  I got corrected somewhere recently, that my previous understanding about life most likely originating around deep sea hot water vents is now rather out of date. Terrestrial hot volcanic pools seem to be the current favourite. 

I am not sure anything in science is ever out of date.  It may be just coming through a different channel.  I had that experience with something I  read last night about special relativity - something I'd been thinking and (rarely) saying for some years.  Made me feel good.

 

So, don't give up on the sea yet. Maybe the vents are in an ancient volcano that sank during a climate change era.  :-)

[Vmedvil2]

The Earth 4 billion years ago was a hot volcanic planet, The Needs components would have needed to be mixed together in an acid or water along with amino acids and DNA fragments. 

[hazelm]

The Earth 4 billion years ago was a hot volcanic planet, The Needs components would have needed to be mixed together in an acid or water along with amino acids and DNA fragments. 

I was wondering if there was water at that time.  It has to have started out volcanic, yes.  Question is when did water appear compared to when life appeared.  Didn't we have one thread about a possible alternating between water and heat? That oversimplifies but something like that.  I think we did.

[hazelm]

I just read something in Scientific American that took me back to this in tje  Science Daily article:  "Carell’s story starts with only six molecular building blocks—oxygen, nitrogen, methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen cyanide, all of which would have been present on early Earth."

 

Of course I knew.  There was almost no (if any) oxygen on Earth when life (bacteria) first formed.   A Scientific American article (Missing E.T. ) just reminded me that about 1.87 billion years ago oxygen was missing - or infinitesimally rare.  Yet life flourished.  Of course - bacteria do not like oxygen.  Am I right?

 

The article is short.  I'd almost have to copy the entire piece to get the story and that is a no-no.  If you  have the October issue, it is on page 19,  It is basically about what to search for on other planets if you are looking for signs that life could exist.    Mentioned is cerium which serves as a proxy for ancient oxygen levels

Edited October 19, 2018 by hazelm

[Dubbelosix]

Isn't it funny how, no matter where you are in the universe, life can emerge from otherwise non-living and unconcious matter?

 

I think it is. We tend to say life emerged from some particular conditions and this much is true, but what if the property of life itself was more fundamental than some random processing of statistical variables?

 

The ability of matter to ''come together'' like it does for life, no doubt has connection with quantum mechanics - so much so, the very phenomenon of ''self'' and ''conscioussness'' may come from quantum entanglement that could in a sense explain how a multiparticile system can come together in a holistic phenomenon of self and consciousness and a sense of ''one-ness.'' 

 

Fred Hoyle tried to calculate the chances of life coming about, his conclusions through a mathematical basis only, led to a conclusion that only a god could have arranged the conditions so that life could arise. I can certainly say, that his statistics are in question to be treated as a true evidence of a god, but what it does show is that what appears impossibly complex odds, are not so impossible, and the chemistry given above is probably only one such recipe - there may be several recipes of life, ... as the old saying goes from TV, ''it's life Jim, but not as we know it.''

 

I personally believe, that life arises from a cosmic consciousness that willingly expresses itself in all forms of life, that does not just mean our narrow perception of what life is. 

[tetrahedron]

Iron and nickel ions would have filled the seas, given all the meteoritic activity from the Late Heavy Bombardment- many of the space rocks would have been composed largely of iron and nickel, with an admixture of other metals. In the nonoxidizing atmospheric conditions many metallic particulates would have been eroded and deposited by rivers, glaciers, etc. on beaches, where the tides would have kept them mixed along with many organic compounds. In addition, given that many fewer radioactive half-lives would have transpired in our early geological history, the relative ratios of many highly radioactive elements would have been higher then than today, so for example we have fossilized evidence of naturally formed nuclear reactors. Anyway, many nuclear decays produce energetic electrons which can power chemical transformations, so beach sand would have been a reaction hotbed. Because the moon, which formed after the proto-earth was impacted by a protoplanetary body, was so much closer to earth than now, tides would have been much larger and more frequent, and so would have the day-night cycle, as the earth's rotation hadn't yet been slowed by gravitational interaction with the moon. Tsunami-like tidal effects might have washed miles inland, further increasing reaction surface areas.

 

For me the entire planet was involved in creating the components leading up to the first life.

 

Jess Tauber

[hazelm]

 

Isn't it funny how, no matter where you are in the universe, life can emerge from otherwise non-living and unconcious matter?

 

I think it is. We tend to say life emerged from some particular conditions and this much is true, but what if the property of life itself was more fundamental than some random processing of statistical variables?

 

The ability of matter to ''come together'' like it does for life, no doubt has connection with quantum mechanics - so much so, the very phenomenon of ''self'' and ''conscioussness'' may come from quantum entanglement that could in a sense explain how a multiparticile system can come together in a holistic phenomenon of self and consciousness and a sense of ''one-ness.'' 

 

Fred Hoyle tried to calculate the chances of life coming about, his conclusions through a mathematical basis only, led to a conclusion that only a god could have arranged the conditions so that life could arise. I can certainly say, that his statistics are in question to be treated as a true evidence of a god, but what it does show is that what appears impossibly complex odds, are not so impossible, and the chemistry given above is probably only one such recipe - there may be several recipes of life, ... as the old saying goes from TV, ''it's life Jim, but not as we know it.''

 

I personally believe, that life arises from a cosmic consciousness that willingly expresses itself in all forms of life, that does not just mean our narrow perception of what life is. 

 

Therefore life is consciousness and consciousness is life.  Right?  Are we asking the wrong question?  Are there two questions:  (1) How did the human (material) body (or any other animal body) form and (2)  How did the  body become consciously aware?  Then, I think, that gets us  back to which animals have consciousness?

[hazelm]

Dubbelosix wrote "cosmic consciousness" which is I think a bit different to consciousness. All things may be connected (entangled :) ) in cosmic consciousness to a certain extent, it is based on a higher level of being or something like that expalined better in the following wiki link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Consciousness

 

Consciousness from the dictionary is defined as 

1. 1.

   the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings.

   "she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later"

   synonyms: awareness, wakefulness, alertness, responsiveness, sentience

   "she failed to regain consciousness"

      
2. 2.

   a person's awareness or perception of something.

   "her acute consciousness of Luke's presence"

   synonyms: awareness of, knowledge of the existence of, alertness to, sensitivity to, realization of, cognizance of, mindfulness of, perception of, apprehension of, recognition of

   "her acute consciousness of Luke's presence"

 

Animals are conscious by this definition, interestingly trees react to threats by releasing chemicals could they also be described as being conscious by the same definition above. 

 

All life is composed mainly of the four macromolecule building blocks: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. The interactions of different polymers of these basic molecule types make up the majority of life's structure and function. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/AP_Biology/The_Chemical_Building_Blocks_of_Life

Ah yes,  "cosmic consciousness".  My mind slipped a cog there.  Cosmic consciousness is (I understand) the universal consciousness from which we all gather our own share of personal consciousness.    Mind, when I say "is" I am not declaring it for real but as one theory among many.  It sounds good until someone asks where it comes from. 

 

Cog back in place - I hope.