Liquid Crystal Phases of DNA, Beginning of Life? 150
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.
soup (Score:0, Interesting)
neat (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:not intelligent enough... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:not intelligent enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you don't like it, fuck you.
Re:not intelligent enough... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 extension fear God. I never understand the logic behind yelling "you'll go to Hell for [insert triviality]!!" to someone who doesn't believe in a Hell.
Now you'll probably claim those people aren't "real Christians", but realize they are vocal and cannot be ignored. As you know, they are very active politically. Heck, if you're active in politics, your best bet is to claim you're religious even if you're not. Too many people associate it with being "good".
Let's not get into the specifics of your particular religion, because IMO if you take a step back, it is rather ridiculous. So many things are taken out of context, interpreted to fit biases or simply translated incorrectly. For example, "Jesus walks ON water" is written same as "Jesus wants NEXT TO water" in the original language.
Then the whole anti-homo stuff... jeez. Only 0.02% of the whole book can be interpreted to be about gays somehow and even that can be explained away through context and interpretation (e.g. good luck following all the rules in Leviticus). Yet Christianity appears to be all about sexuality and homosexuality in particular. That's what they're really vocal about and even base voting decisions on.
Then there's the Jesus guy... an illiterate carpenter who care about poor sick people. While I don't believe he had any powers, I can run a thought experiment of "what would Jesus do". Well, it's *really* hard for me to imagine that such a figure would endorse any of the smug bigoted consumption-oriented Christians of today.
Can you at least see how modern implementation of religion doesn't even inherently bash logic, but even conflict with its own roots?
I really wish we as a humanity could put all this rubbish behind us. On the other hand, humanity being what it is, we could most likely expect something even worse (e.g. Scientology)...