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Liquid Crystal Phases of DNA, Beginning of Life?

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sat Nov 24, 2007 12:00 PM
from the lot-better-than-my-theory-of-gum-and-scotch-tape dept.
Biotech
An anonymous reader writes "A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth. CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark said the team found that surprisingly short segments of DNA, life's molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that "self-orient" parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution. Life is widely believed to have emerged as segments of DNA- or RNA-like molecules in a prebiotic "soup" solution of ancient organic molecules.
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Submission: Liquid crystal phases of DNA, beginning of life? by Anonymous Coward
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  • Life? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Random BedHead Ed (602081) on Saturday November 24 2007, @12:04PM (#21463391) Homepage Journal
    Life was started when the Great Green Arkleseizure sneezed it across the universe to this location. Stop shattering my worldview with these so-called "discoveries."

    • Re:Life? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kjella (173770) on Saturday November 24 2007, @12:28PM (#21463623) Homepage
      Obviously off on the religious mockery tangent, but this isn't really offtopic. If (I'd say when) we discover how to make life from inanimate matter, there's bound to be yet another clash between Genesis [wikipedia.org] and Abiogenesis [wikipedia.org]. And some people will yet again claim that the Book is right and science is wrong. Obviously religion gets a lot less personal if God is someone that once snapped his fingers and there was a Big Bang - and that everything that follows can be replicated in a test tube. But I think that we in the not too distant future will make the connection from inanimate molecules into primitive replicating beings. And if God doesn't smite us down at that point for invading his turf he never will.
      • Its interesting to me the idea that only God can create life. I dont know if there's a scriptural basis for it or if its something people just assume is true. Perhaps those that believe in immortal souls would view it differently than those who believe a person or animal IS a soul like Jehovah's Witnesses and 7th Day Adventists. If life requires some spiritual soul then yes it would make sense to say only God could make life. However if we really are just our bodies then I see no reason that man couldnt eve
        • Even if your conjecture is true, why not the Giant Invisible Green Panda or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Three Infinite Donuts of Doom?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by brainnolo (688900)
          The fact that you do not get it, or nobody gets it does not mean that there is no explanation. Our brain is amazing but I doubt that it is the top intelligence ever achievable by a living creature, so it is plausible that we are just not intelligent enough to understand some things.

          • Re:Life? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by foniksonik (573572) on Saturday November 24 2007, @12:59PM (#21463825) Homepage Journal
            We're plenty intelligent enough... we just don't have enough data and probably never will, but we can make guesses - more educated guesses than those made by early philosophers (religious academics and natural academics). Personally I don't see the disconnect between early science/religion and modern science. They sought answers with what information they had available.. we do the same. Just because some cult of people want to believe that we were at the pinnacle of understanding some 2 - 3 thousand years ago, doesn't discount the efforts made at the time.

            Those Rabbis, Greeks and monks were very smart people - they also had to deal with politics and ignorance however and sometimes the best way to deal with that is to dumb it down to a lowest common denominator. "That's right, God made that happen. Don't go to war over it... it was a miracle. Now give us money so we can keep teaching your kids how to read/write and count to ten."
            • If only I had mod points (and then, having not posted, of course). Very well put, I doubt I could've said it any better.

          • not intelligent enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CrazedWalrus (901897) on Saturday November 24 2007, @01:02PM (#21463849) Journal
            ...Or don't have the proper perspective. For example, consider one of those huge walk-through mazes. Those things are dog-simple when seen from above, but when you're inside of it, it can take an hour to get out. You do eventually get out, but it takes a lot longer to solve that way than the seconds it would take when seen from a better point of view.

            I'm personally of the opinion that nothing science concludes will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of (a) God(s), so I'm not sure why this discussion keeps coming up. Yeah, science never "proves", only "shows to be likely", whatever. The point is that you either believe in God or you don't. There's no scientifically veritable "correct" answer that can ever be had until some day in the future when it's too late to do anything about it anyway. You're either worm food or in your final eternal resting place... wherever that may be.

            Honestly, the religion bashing is completely pointless and is getting really, really old hat.

            • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

              by brainnolo (688900)
              Religion bashing may be pointless but, like governments, the main religious organizations are very influent, powerful and rich (and unlike governments they do not offer any tangible service). I'm all for free thinking but for example the Roman Church has been involved in many scandals and crimes against humanity (crusades comes to mind obviously) and they are never punished for their actions. If my opinion was worth something religious organization wouldn't be allowed or would be controlled as tightly (or e
              • Now that you mention the Crusades, I advise you to read up some history books before saying "it was all the Church's fault" or "it was a war of religion".

                • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

                  by Pax681 (1002592)
                  erm... pope boniface orderd the first crusade... against ther muslims.... to get jerusalem and the "holy land" into charistian hands....... there fore the church of rome ordered the crusades ad backed ALL of the crusades. to say this wasn't a war of religion..which it BLATANTLY was , AND to then say read books on it is quite frankly amazing. you see when the poster reads up on it he will see that it was a war of religion. i give talk on a semi regular basis about the Templars, their history, the crusade
                  • Bonifacius? Are you sure? It was a proclamation by Pope Urbanus (of which there are multiple transcribed versions, so there is uncertainty on what had been actually said) and it was just a "call to arms", but he himself did not expect the reaction.

                    Talking about a war of religion is an understatement of the Crusades (but nice for people trying to push ideologies), a mixture of many different factors, and which represent part of the medieval mentality (a strange, complex one, but not certainly the one of a "D
              • ........and they are never punished for their actions.......

                You hypocrite! Have you ever been punished for your bad actions? How many lies you have told so far in your life, or stuff you have "appropriated" that wasn't yours? How about the other eight commandments? Notice they are called commandments not optional choices. How many times have you broken traffic laws and not been punished. Ever wonder what kind of a world it would be if EVERYBODY got punished instantly, EVERY time we broke some law? Because w

            • Re:not intelligent enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Daniel Dvorkin (106857) on Saturday November 24 2007, @01:27PM (#21464051) Homepage Journal
              I'm personally of the opinion that nothing science concludes will ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of (a) God(s), so I'm not sure why this discussion keeps coming up.

              It keeps coming up because religious ideologues keep insisting that science is wrong because it contradicts their beliefs. And they want to base public policy and education on those beliefs. The beliefs themselves are a personal matter, of course, and they've got every right to believe that Rapture is imminent or that life was created in its current form 6000 years ago; the conflict occurs when they try to base things like environmental management or what's taught in high-school science classes on it.

              Honestly, the religion bashing is completely pointless and is getting really, really old hat.

              The science bashing isn't pointless at all -- it's a means of gaining political power -- but it's definitely old hat, which doesn't keep fanatics from doing it. Scientists who bash religion, e.g. Dawkins, do so out of disgust with religion's continual insistence on trying to replace knowledge with ignorance, and the consequences thereof.
              • However, religion bashing has come to a point where even admitting of being religious is a cause of ridicule or arrogance. Don't forget that tolerance works both ways - from "less open" to "more open" and from "more open" to "less open". I've only seen the former, which in turn causes a lot of people to behave rather arrogantly.

                Religion by itself is not a curse, nor a tainting mark. I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?

                • Re:not intelligent enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

                  by Daniel Dvorkin (106857) on Saturday November 24 2007, @02:17PM (#21464441) Homepage Journal
                  However, religion bashing has come to a point where even admitting of being religious is a cause of ridicule or arrogance.

                  [shrug] I haven't seen that; I have seen a lot of religious believers being hypersensitive and interpreting fanatic-bashing as religion-bashing generally. E.g., when someone attempts to jump in on a discussion of the origins of DNA in the early terrestrial environment with, "That can't be true because Genesis says ..." then mockery is the only reasonable response. That's not religion-bashing, that's fanatic-bashing. If you are willing to accomodate your religious beliefs to scientific observations, as many religious scientists have done, then hardly anyone is going to attack you for it. (And those who do can be ignored; there are cranks and professional malcontents on both sides of every argument.)

                  I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?

                  Of course not. Motivation is irrelevant when science is done right. You can study a problem because you have a personal interest in solving it, because you want to unravel the mysteries of God's creation, because someone is paying you a whole lot of money to do so, or just out of simple curiosity -- all of these motivations can produce good science, and will no doubt continue to do so. But it's important to acknowledge that some motivations are more likely to lead to bias than others; and it is absurd to deny that religion has introduced considerable bias into the study of the origins of life.
                    • Welcome to the internet. Population: every smug, religion-hating atheist on the planet.

                      And every hypersensitive religionist who will find every excuse to make personal attacks based on out-of-context snippets of /. posts, apparently.

                • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by Anonymous Coward

                  However, religion bashing has come to a point where even admitting of being religious is a cause of ridicule or arrogance.

                  Gee I wonder why? Oh that's right, it's because most often "your religion" has some pretty nasty things to say about the rest of us. Such as suffering in eternal agony unless we reciprocate the love of your god or prophet. When was the last anti-Buddhist rant you've heard or read? Ever? Stop trying to pass off being spiritual as having an organized set of beliefs that you must adhere to and coerce others to adhere to as well. I consider myself a very spiritual person but I'm still an atheist and an agnosti

                • ---Religion by itself is not a curse, nor a tainting mark. I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?

                  Absolutely not.

                  Well.. I have grown away from religion (Catholicism) because of linguists, historians, and anthropologists... scientists.

                  When I hear the reports of an archaeology dig about how the Bible wasn't quite true, I lose some faith.
                  When I see the reports and academic writings indicating how a different peoples history doesn't coincide with the Bible, I lose faith.
                  When I witness
                  • In that case, you realize that the scriptures, like everything else, are product of their times. Even if Catholicism believes they're "inspired", a good theologist will tell you that even so, they must be interpreted with regards of the historical and social context of the time. I've seen a Jesuit theologist talk about that in the context of Noah's Ark, and he made perfectly valid arguments without being "blasphemous".

                    Unlike other variants of Christians, Catholicism does not really promote a literal interpr

                • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                  by moz25 (262020)
                  Don't forget that tolerance works both ways - from "less open" to "more open" and from "more open" to "less open".

                  I have no issue whatsoever with people who keep their religion to themselves or who behave in ways that I would expect, i.e. modest, kind and forgiving. I know people who are like that and I have no troubles with them.

                  Instead, we are confronted almost daily with "proud Christians" who are so intensely narrowminded that they cannot even comprehend that we do not secretly believe in God and by ext
                  • I hope this doesn't sound like an ad hominem, but your post incarnates the attitude I was writing about in my other message. Calling it "rubbish" does not make you any better of the religion you despise, even though you may have all the logic behind you.
                    Pride in a religion is nothing wrong unless you start killing people in its name. And yet, it would be the person's fault, or fault of the people who indoctrinate... but not of religion itself.
                    • I agree the word "rubbish" was ill-chosen, but I do not despise religion itself. There are lots of belief systems that a majority of people consider to be false, yet can still appreciate. It's not like I'm going to despise kids for believing in Santa.

                      The difference is that with religion, it's actual adults with power and money pushing flawed logic with energy and fanaticism. It is difficult to remain modest while those who assault logic on every level shout the loudest.

                      It complicates matters that those who
                    • Looking at the context, homosexuality is as much a sin as eating shellfish or wearing clothes of certain modern fabrics. If it's as much a sin as something that's obviously not a sin, then it's obvious to understand that it's really not something to get worked up about.

                      Try to at least read the thing without cultural bias...
                • .......I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?....

                  Nothing at all. They ask and try to answer different questions that have puzzled the minds of man since the dawn of history.

                  Science attempts to answer "how" questions. Religion is tries to answer "why" questions. Neither has cornered the market answering "when" things happened or when they might happen.

                  All information comes to us either by first hand experience or by communication from some witness. Nobody can PROVE if a witness is

                • I do science and I am religious. Is there something wrong in that?


                  I studied for many years on a catholic school. We had our religion classes. We had our masses. And we would have hour biology classes. The teacher, btw, was a priest. He would even say "science is the tool god gave us to understand his creation". I find that a very enlightened way to look at things.

                  A scientist who is also religious is something very natural for me.

              • It keeps coming up because religious ideologues keep insisting that science is wrong because it contradicts their beliefs.

                I was with you until you said "wrong". Too often I see religious ideologues insisting that science is the only rational basis for a worldview, because other worldviews contradict their beliefs. Religious zealots, regardless of flavor, tend to be distressingly similar when arguing their points of view.

            • Science can't prove or disprove there's a god or gods, but it can turn up an awful lot of evidence that a particular idea of what a god is like is unlikely to be correct.

              Scientists creating life from inanimate matter in the lab has absolutely nothing to say about whether god exists, but it pretty much blows out of the water the idea that creating life is the exclusive province of the divine.

              • Science can't prove or disprove there's a god or gods, but it can turn up an awful lot of evidence that a particular idea of what a god is like is unlikely to be correct.

                Scientists creating life from inanimate matter in the lab has absolutely nothing to say about whether god exists, but it pretty much blows out of the water the idea that creating life is the exclusive province of the divine.

                [italics mine]

                Actually, *scientists* creating life from inanimate matter in the lab is an example of intelligent design (in this case the designer being the scientists). Historically, many proponents of Judaism and Christianity have proposed intermediates in their interpretation of creation (e.g. angels). A major point of just about all flavors of Jewish and Christian theology is that God prefers to use human (and sometimes angelic) agents as opposed to directly working miracles.

                For that matter, we

                • I didn't say intelligent, I said divine.

                  Certainly all religions, or even all adherents of particular religions wouldn't find scientists creating life a threat. There are some though, and they seem to be particularly vocal about the origins and basic mechanics of life creating being off limits to humans.

                  So when the first scientist creates life that gives us three options (by my in-the-moment count): 1) there's nothing divine about creating life, 2) those scientists are the hand of God at work or 3) humanity
            • Science will never disprove god, and it ain't the job of science. But as science explain more and more, even up to the point we are nearing a reproduction of the apparition of life, domain once reserved to the "sacred & religious", the god of the gap back down to the shadow. I guess that there will be a point where only the primal move/big bang/or whatever could be assigned to such a god of the gap. And nothing afterward. This is what i think most of those attacking science want to fight against. The re
            • There are a lot of claims in religion that are beyond what we can ever prove by science, and those will never be answered. However, most religious texts make claims about earth, life and our origins that are testable. Quite many of these turn out to be wrong, as in "the earth is flat" wrong in every sense but the philosophical discussion on whether knowledge can be gained through observation or exists at all. Under any other circumstance you'd call those undisputable facts, as solid as the chair I'm sitting
              • Then I would call you ignorant.

                If you were as wise as you indirectly claim, then you would realise that there are so many more questions about everything than answers.

                Not so amazingly, science cannot explain many things. For example, look at the Fermi Paradox. For another, investigate why quantum mechanics does what it does. Whatever we dig into, we open more questions and unexplainable phenomena.

                The wisest I know are agnostic and are open to interesting interpretation. And they certainly don't religion-bas
        • How did you draw the latter conclusion from the former questions?
        • Why do you even think your questions make sense?

  • neat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wizardforce (1005805) on Saturday November 24 2007, @12:12PM (#21463473) Journal
    "The key observation with respect to early life is that this aggregation of nano DNA strands is possible only if they form duplexes," Clark said. "In a sample of chains in which the bases don't match and the chains can't form helical duplexes, we did not observe liquid crystal ordering."

    The CU-Boulder and University of Milan team began a series of experiments to see how short the DNA segments could be and still show liquid crystal ordering, said Clark. The team found that even a DNA segment as short as six bases, when paired with a complementary segment that together measured just two nanometers long and two nanometers in diameter, could still assemble itself into the liquid crystal phases, in spite of having almost no elongation in shape. Subsequent tests by the team involved mixed solutions of complementary and noncomplementary DNA segments, said Clark. The results indicated that essentially all of the complementary DNA bits condensed out in the form of liquid crystal droplets, physically separating them from the noncomplementary DNA segments. "We found this to be a remarkable result," Clark said. "It means that small molecules with the ability to pair up the right way can seek each other out and collect together into drops that are internally self-organized to facilitate the growth of larger pairable molecules. "In essence, the liquid crystal phase condensation selects the appropriate molecular components, and with the right chemistry would evolve larger molecules tuned to stabilize the liquid crystal phase. If this is correct, the linear polymer shape of DNA itself is a vestige of formation by liquid crystal order."
    one of the requirements for life is that you have an environment that supports molecular self assembly and recognition, this experiment seems to show that this is the case with DNA and RNA strands as short as 6 bases and can select for more stable configurations over time. It's the beginnings of evolutionary natural selection- base pairs assemble into structures that have certain desireable characteristics.

  • God of the Gaps (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Liquidrage (640463) on Saturday November 24 2007, @01:37PM (#21464131)
    It's shrinking. One day they'll be no place to hide.
      • Ever study a godless society or those in power that don't believe in God (or "higher power" more specifically)? You get a nasty form of hubris and arrogance hell bent on power and selfishness.

        On the flip side of the coin, I wouldn't want to live in the days of the crusades or modern radical Islam either. But don't wish for a Godless society. It's just as bad.
  • I bet Daniel Dennett is happier now
  • I hate seeing question marks on story titles. Throw in the word "speculation" if you must but leave out the question mark because you're not asking a question, you're speculating on questionable content. It's happening way to much at Slashdot, Digg, et al. Mod me down to oblivion but I had to get it off my chest because it's been bothering me for a long time. Thanks for listening.
  • The sample came from Hugh Hefner's hot tub, so there was all kinds of DNA in it.
  • First, we need the spontaneous formation of a membrane that can selectively remove calcium. Calcium at higher concentrations is cytotoxic and will aggregate proteins/nucleic acids. Calcium regulation is therefore tight and ubiquitous in living things. See article. [sciencedirect.com]

    Given such a membrane and some short DNA polymers, we also need to translate this random "information" into something meaningful. The current mechanism is: DNA -> RNA -> PROTEIN. This requires RNA polymerase or, at least, some ribosom

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Gotung (571984)
      Unfortunately with its tendency to test out every possible variation, evolution also leads to nutbags like you. Go join a suicide cult and help evolution run its course.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ScentCone (795499)
      do not be dismayed, it is the way it was meant to be

      I'm curious. Do you ever, you know, actually read your own posts? Unpunctuated, case-mangled, non-sequitor-ish loony ramblings have the very subtle effect of, you know, making you look like a simpering, witless, theo-clown. Just sayin'. Other than that, have a great weekend!
        • There's no deep message embedded in it, but the idiot who posted it thinks he's brilliant. Probably an english major.

          On reflection, I think you're right. That degree of wack-a-doo sophistry takes work. Hard, hard work. Because even for someone with a low IQ, it's a major project to lie that baldly about how you see the world, or (much harder!) actually suspend reason long enough to actually convince yourself that's how it really is.

          • Because even for someone with a low IQ, it's a major project to lie that baldly about how you see the world, or (much harder!) actually suspend reason long enough to actually convince yourself that's how it really is.

            Actually, it's pretty easy. Unfortunately.

    • How did the DNA strands form? Randomly, all by themselves? How likely is that? Anyone knows?

      I'm sure the likelihood is a factor of time. While I could use the 1000 monkeys analogy, I prefer Steven Wright: "Anywhere is walking distance if you have the time."

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by harrv (627638)
      In "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, he makes the point that there are approximately a billion billion planets in the universe within the so-called "goldilocks zone", that is, capable of sustaining life because they probably have liquid water. So, even if the likelihood of DNA or RNA randomly forming was a billion-to-one, that would still mean that it has happened on a billion planets.
    • Sorry, I'm a little (read: a lot) hungover, so I don't know what the rest of your post says. But there's one thing I take issue with:

      Media is nice, just not all that important

      Do you really think so? Maybe you should ask those dictators who use government-controlled media streams to send out their propoganda if they think media is important. Maybe you should look up the relationship between the prevalency of free press in a country and its government's human rights violations. Media, and to a greater extent free press, is INTEGRAL for any democrati

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