Life May Have Evolved In Ice

Philip Bailey writes "An article in this month's Discover Magazine claims that some of the fundamental organic molecules required for the development of life could have spontaneously arisen within ice. Scientist Stanley Miller was responsible for seminal experiments in the 1950s in this area. He used sparks and a mixture of inorganic chemicals to test his theories, but turned to low temperature experiments in later years. He was able to create the constituents of RNA and proteins from a mixture of cyanide, ammonia and ice in trials lasting up to 25 years. A process known as eutectic freezing is thought to be the basis of these results: small pockets of liquid water, in which foreign molecules are concentrated enormously, increases the reaction rates, and more than compensates for temperature-related slowing."

Star Trek

[Nerdfest (867930)]

He should probably avoid Q if he wants to push up his success rate.

Ice...

[icegreentea (974342)]

Was the earth even cold enough back then to have that much ice? My understanding is that life began about 3 billion years ago, and that Hadean Earth pretty much lasted until then.

Re:Ice...

[osu-neko (2604)]

Closer to four billion years ago (at least 3.7 billion in any case). And the conclusion here is not that life evolved in ice, but that it may have. It's possible. That has less significance for history on Earth as it does on other worlds...

Re:

[rssrss (686344)]

"Was the earth even cold enough back then to have that much ice?"

Sure. The Hummer hadn't been invented back then.

Re:Ice...

[radtea (464814)]

Was the earth even cold enough back then to have that much ice?

Possibly.

One of the ongoing problems in paleobiology is the "early quiet sun". Solar models, which we now know to be extremely accurate based on solar neutrino measurements, show that the sun was considerably dimmer in the distant past. So dim that by any reasonable standard we would expect the Earth to be substantially covered with... ice.

A mechanism that would cause life to form in an icy environment would give a lot of answers to open questions.

Google "standard solar model", "early quiet sun" and "Sudbury Neutrino Observatory" for some of the background on this.

Re:Ice...

[Skreems (598317)]

The only result for "early quiet sun" is a hit on some site talking about early Brian Eno recordings...

Re:Ice...

[Rakshasa Taisab (244699)]

I believe what you should be searching for is "faint young sun", and I learned about it in my introductory astronomy class so it's not just made up. The sun had about 70% of its current output back then.

Re:Ice...

[repapetilto (1219852)]

I don't think you're getting the beauty of this. There is no need for the involvement of a special animating force, all thats required are the "forces" we already see as behind everything else thats going on at a molecular level (ie electrostatic). Under certain conditions (adsorbing to the ice surface and being in high concentrations in a cold environment) the would-be collection of random atoms assume a more stable state by reacting with each other and eventually forming compounds like adenine.

Re:

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

Yes, "Hadean Earth pretty much lasted until then", give or take a billion years or so, pretty much.

Keep in mind that multicellular life has only existed for the past 200 million years, so these aren't exactly coffee breaks we're talking about. We already knew that ice can cover most of the earth within a few millenia, and as we are quickly finding out, it can disappear even faster than that if you put in a little effort. Ice reflects light, cooling off the earth, and water absorbs light, warming it, so both

Re:

[pokerdad (1124121)]

Keep in mind that multicellular life has only existed for the past 200 million years

You might want to check your facts [wikipedia.org].

And nothing I have ever read has indicated that "Earth probably has about another billion years of useful life left before the sun has its midlife crisis"; everything has always said 3 to 5 billion years.

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[Hognoxious (631665)]

nothing I have ever read has indicated that "Earth probably has about another billion years of useful life left before the sun has its midlife crisis"; everything has always said 3 to 5 billion years.

Phew, I was worried for a moment there!

Thank You!

[owlnation (858981)]

So, the layout change was just for that one article? Please say yes...

I'm so happy to see things back to normal for this article -- you've no idea.

Re:

[Dr. Eggman (932300)]

Not quite, although it only seems to be accessable through the "idle" section, from there you can access any other section and article summary, similar in fashion to the firehose. Once you click "read more," however, the articles are presented in the good old fashion, save for 'idle' articles.

Re:

[Wingnut64 (446382)]

You can change it back to the original format under 'Comments' in your user preferences.

Reminds me of a classic Robert Frost poem

[sweet_petunias_full_ (1091547)]

Some say the world evolved in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

To be sure, some sparks were still needed for the ice theory but there you have it.

oblig.

[owlnation (858981)]

I, for one, welcome our new penguin overlords.

All hail Tux!

Why so few cryophiles?

[G4from128k (686170)]

Although I can certainly see how the physics of freezing would help concentrate biological precursors, I would expect an icy-origin to have left more evidence in the form of cryophilic biodiversity. With an icy origin, ice-tolerant organisms should have arisen quite early. Indeed they would have probably been the first life forms and ice-adapted life would have been quite common. Unless the Earth experienced a 100% ice-free period, descendants of those original cryophiles would be with us to this day. Moreover, many "normal" species would still arbor a shared genetic basis for evolving ice-tolerance or cryophilic lifestyles.

Instead, we seem to see limited scattering species that have independently evolved various forms of ice-tolerance. I could be wrong. If so, I'd love to hear if biologists have found evidence for a widely shared mechanism for ice-tolerance that speaks to a frozen beginning.

Re:Why so few cryophiles?

[Cassius Corodes (1084513)]

That's a very good point - given that the simplest life forms we have found so far (in terms of the length of the dna) are ones that are evolved for normal (ie-non icy) conditions. However its interesting to note that for most bacteria being frozen is not lethal (although I'm not 100% sure on this), rather it just stops doing anything until it thaws and then continues on.

Re:Why so few cryophiles?

[Epistax (544591)]

I thought everyone knew this. Cryophiles taste awesome.

Re:Why so few cryophiles?

[OzRoy (602691)]

Unless the Earth experienced a 100% ice-free period, descendants of those original cryophiles would be with us to this day.

I believe that is the case. A few very large volcanic eruptions increased the CO2 and caused high temperatures and no polar ice caps. I think this is one of the theories as to why we have such large oil deposits. Without the polar ice caps the ocean currents stopped flowing, and the CO2 in the atmosphere was removed very slowly by algea that died and sank to the ocean floor and in the right areas were trapped and converted into an oil deposit.

Of course it is a little bit more involved than that and this is only my vague layman understanding. Someone else can fill in all the details.

Re:

[Skreems (598317)]

Actually, most of the world outside the US has come to the conclusion that oil deposits are inorganic in nature. It explains a lot, including why some old dry wells are spontaneously refilling from some deeper source.

Re:

[Oktober Sunset (838224)]

no, the theory that oil has a non-biological origin is still a minority opinion, and for good reason.

Re:Why so few cryophiles?

[TapeCutter (624760)]

So why did you claim that it explains "dry wells refilling", and where is your source for the "everyone is taught this in Europe" claim you made in reply to the other poster?

It's FUD just like the anti-global warming FUD they have been peddling for the last 20yrs. Here is a random site [fromthewilderness.com] that debunks the abiotic oil theory, there are many more out there.

And yes, a "-1 wrong" mod would come in handy, but for this kind of thing a "-1 bullshit" is more appropriate.

Re:

[OzRoy (602691)]

This is completely off-topic, but the event I mentioned is called an Anoxic Event ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event [wikipedia.org] ) and how this relates to oil production is talked about in this fascinating documentary
http://abc.net.au/science/crude/ [abc.net.au]

Re:

[budgenator (254554)]

Well they think this rock has been completely frozen over and completely thawed out a couple times and we still here so that should count for some cryophilae. The other thing is the research detected RNA chains and most life (on Earth anyways) is DNA based.

Oxygen Catastrophe?

[Cybrex (156654)]

I'm in no way qualified to even speak on this subject, but could it be that the Oxygen Catastrophe [en.wikipedia], in wiping out the great majority of life on Earth, provided sufficient selective pressure that any previous bias toward cryophilic life was effectively erased? I'm just speculating wildly here.

Re:

[OzRoy (602691)]

Except the Oxygen Catastrophe caused the first ice age.

With ice in abundance the ice tolerant creatures have just as much, maybe a greater chance of surviving.

Re:

[Zebraheaded (1229302)]

From what I remember, there's been a fair amount of species found that have developed a tolerance for cold temperatures; but there's been very limited results of research into obligate psychrophiles, which would have more likely evolved in a cold environment. I think this field is one of those areas of bacterial research that is going to be very slow in developing due to the incredible difficulty of culturing these kinds of organisms in vitro. One of my old professors published a very interesting paper on

Re:

[repapetilto (1219852)]

My impression from the article is that a cold, ice environment facilitates the creation of single nucleotides (and obviously other molecules) from "scratch' due to 1) the ice surface acting as a catalyst, and 2) water tending to form into crystals (a more stable arrangement in cold temperatures) which requires the exclusion of other molecules to elsewhere and hence small pockets with high concentrations of molecules with similar polarity. Basically the first phenomenon is a lowering of the Activation energ

Re:

[jd (1658)]

Although "Ice Worms" are a product of a mutation, it was a single mutation and therefore may well be a throwback to an earlier form.

Some say that life evolved in fire...

[lennier (44736)]

Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to bootstrap twice
I think I know enough of genes
To say that for mutation ice
Is also keen
And would suffice

Re:

[jerryasher (151512)]

Very nice adaptation of Robert Frost.

Re:

[Cybrex (156654)]

Oh damn. Now I wish I hadn't commented so I could mod you up. Well done!

what does it mean ?

[Tsiangkun (746511)]

I think they are saying that the molecular precursors to life on earth, can be created in ice. We see large chunks of flying ice in the universe. Our planet may have been implanted with the required precursors for life from ice flying into the planet.

I don't know so much that they are intending to say that the earliest life forms were created in ice.

But I don't know, I didn't read the article. Just taking a break from the superbowl.

Ice Ice Baby...

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

He was able to create the constituents of RNA and proteins from a mixture of cyanide, ammonia and ice in trials lasting up to 25 years.

Another early experiment, in which he added Vanilla [wikipedia.org] to the mix still haunts Professor Miller to this day.

Chuck Norris answered this recently.

[doomy (7461)]

According to him:

"It's funny. It's cute. But here's what I really think about the theory of evolution: It's not real. It is not the way we got here. In fact, the life you see on this planet is really just a list of creatures God has allowed to live. We are not creations of random chance. We are not accidents. There is a God, a Creator, who made you and me. We were made in His image, which separates us from all other creatures."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52567 [worldnetdaily.com]

Damn it.

[naturalog (1123935)]

Now all the crazy evangelicals will be saying that scientists think we all came from ice cubes.

I'd believe it started in the YELLOW ice...

[csoto (220540)]

but that would be kind of a chicken-and-egg thing, now wouldn't it?

Earth's Temp

[bendodge (998616)]

So will global warming stop evolution?

Re:

[thepotoo (829391)]

So will global warming stop evolution?

Is that a serious question? The answer is no, because the only way to stop evolution is to extinguish all life as we know it.

As long as any organism is alive and has the ability to reproduce with genetic drift, life will continue to evolve. Besides, our predictions of global temperature increase by the end of the century are all below increases of 15C. Species which are adapted to higher temperatures, like Thermus aquaticus, will certainly not be wiped out by global

EXTREME DANGER READ NOW!!!

[Plazmid (1132467)]

Sir, do you realize what you are doing is illegal in nerddom? Having ESPN and Slashdot in the same window could result in a nerd-jock cancellation reaction resulting in the destruction of the universe as we know it? Your nerd license has been officially revoked for participating in this dangerous behaviour.

Re:And it might have evolved in a Chicken McNugget

[teh moges (875080)]

Knowing where something came from allows more insight into where it is going...

The history tells the future argument

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Therefore all computer science students should spend a few months hammering out code on punch cards and paper tape. That will give them great insight into what computers will be like in ten years time.

To paraphrase: bullshit.

Re:The history tells the future argument

[jcnnghm (538570)]

I'd argue that a good hardware design (digital logic, verilog, gate construction, basic circuit design) course and an assembly language course would be invaluable to the modern computer science major.

Re:

[leenks (906881)]

Please open your mind a little. This has, potentially, implications for possibilities of life elsewhere than on Earth...

Re:

[Wonko the Sane (25252)]

Answering these questions do nothing to change the important issues of today and the future.

Knowing how life began is a very important part of understanding life in general. This is relevant to the important issue of making me a cyborg body before my current one wears out.

Give yourself a pat on the back, and -10 modpoints

[Nursie (632944)]

Yes.

If we want to look for life on other planets then this research may help us, if it can be shown life is possible or even likely on frozen planets.

"We're here so let's make the most of it."

Yeah, let's not study ourselves, our origins, or science at all. Why bother with history? We're here, lets make the most of it.

Genius.

Re:And it might have evolved in a Chicken McNugget

[Koiu Lpoi (632570)]

Yes, it does really matter. Knowing how life evolved gives us insights into how life works here and now. Answering these questions most certainly WILL change issues of today. And, even if they don't, who cares? It's knowledge. Humans have this insatiable urge to know everything they can, leading to today's technologically and medically advanced world. However, occasionally we get people who decry the process without understanding it.

you'd better believe it

[Plazmid (1132467)]

Does it matter, yes it does. In fact, there is big big money in finding simple very primitive organisms. Primitive organisms are easy to engineer organisms, which means that it is easy to turn them into oil making machines, which means big bucks.

Re:

[Musrum (779646)]

If we all had that sort of attitude, we would still be banging rocks together...