Old Materials Resurface For "Prebiotic Soup" 263
AliasMarlowe writes "Stanley Miller performed the famous experiments in the 1950s showing that amino acids and other building blocks for biomolecules could be produced by passing lightning through a mix of simple hydrocarbons, water vapor, and ammonia (thought at the time to approximate the Earth's early atmosphere). Other experiments approximated the environment around volcanic eruptions, but those results were not published. Following his death last year, a former student discovered the materials from those experiments, in labelled vials. Analysis of this material indicates that the conditions around volcanic eruptions (still thought to be representative of such events in the early Earth) resulted in a higher yield of amino acids than the simple lightning experiments, and resulted in a greater variety of amino acids." Pharyngula has a discussion of the Science paper, including a graph of the amino acids produced.
Re:Amazing how much gets lost or forgotten (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Undersea smokers..... (Score:3, Informative)
you mean the DNA of these guys [calacademy.org]?
Re:Warning: religious comment. Proceed with cautio (Score:5, Informative)
Um, say what? 'Which' particular hypothesis has very little credibility? Abiogenesis [wikipedia.org]? Just because it's a difficult field of study doesn't mean it is either uninteresting, unfunded or un-anything. For your edification and enjoyment a few crackpot lectures [rockefeller.edu].
Re:Amazing how much gets lost or forgotten (Score:1, Informative)
I am amazed by your stupidity here. You don't understand anything you are attempting to write about.
Re:Undersea smokers..... (Score:3, Informative)
It sounds like it would be interesting to check the amino acids and genome of the life that exists surrounding the undersea vents. Since our oceans are no longer "prebiotic soup", there probably won't be anything truly remarkable (previously unknown amino acids in the DNA for example), but if there is anything, that would be an incredible breakthrough.
If they found amino acids in the DNA (previously unknown or not) it would be a remarkable discovery. Amino Acids are the building blocks of proteins. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid a completely different chemical. To date, no amino acids have been discovered in any DNA.
Re:Warning: religious comment. (Score:2, Informative)
b0ttle said: I'd really like to know more about your creational beliefs, could you explain it in more details?
Ok, for what it's worth, as one who believes that Creationism better explains life than Evolutionism, I'll give it a whirl.
First, I'll lay some groundwork concerning my conclusion. One's belief in Creationism or Evolutionism is determined by how a person believes concerning the origin of matter: either matter has always existed and always been in motion (as Robert Ingersoll posits) or God has always existed, created matter, and set it in motion.
The existence of God is a binary choice: God exists or God does not exist. One of these statements is true and one is false. They cannot both be true and they cannot both be false. It must be one or the other, just as an electrical switch is on or off: either the switch is on or it is off.
So which is it? It must be one or the other. Here is basically the two versions:
Version 1 There is no God. Hydrogen (and all matter for that matter) has always existed. These particles of matter over unfathomable lengths of time moved themselves together, perhaps by magnetism or molecular attraction to form water, proteins, iron, and all manner of molecules which, again over long periods of time, combined to form comets, planets, suns, and eventually a living organism. Over time the information blueprint of this organism (DNA) mutated forming different but similar organisms which changed even further over time. Eventually, blind organisms derived the ability to see, mindless creatures derived the ability to evaluate conditions and make use of what it has seen, and deaf creatures derived the ability to hear. Plants, themselves blind, deaf, and mindless, who have no concept of air currents, structural design, or gravity, formed, by blind, mindless processes aerodynamic seedlings which could disperse in the breeze. Spiders with silk glands (another chance mutation) appeared from the pool of organisms forming and taught themselves to spin webs and somehow imparted this information into its DNA. After so many millions of years of these blueprint changes, organisms becoming more and more complex, these changes accumulated to form a human being, forming at the same time both male and female versions that could come together and produce offspring.
Version 2 God has always existed, has no beginning or ending. This God created all matter, and from this matter God created the universe, setting the magnitude of suns and the spinning of planets. God also created all living things within a short period of time from each other, including humans; both male and female God created them.
Others more intelligent and expressive than myself have put it better than I but this is basically what it comes down to. People have argued for centuries over which is the correct version. I do not pretend to resolve such disputes here other than portray the two options available. Whichever version you choose is a matter of faith because no human has any idea where matter came from. There are only guesses and a consensus of plausible possibilities.
So, is it Creation or Evolution? For me, the evidence for Creation is all around: the earth, the elements, trees, the sun --all of these entities did not pop out of nowhere, hence, they were created.
Rocks do not move themselves. Mindless matter does not accumulate into the fantastic designs with purpose such as a reproductve system or the human mind. Since it is not plausible that random, mindless, chance processes or accidents could result in life as we see today then the only other option is God.
Evolution posits that all life started from a common ancestor (this ancestor arising via abiogenesis) and "evolved" over time via mutations and Natural Selection to the diverse species we see today. This theory cannot be proven nor can it be disproven. It is a possible explanation, just as it is possible a cosmic baboon farted life into existence, and many scientist attempt to push round pegs into square holes to try and make the evidence fit with the assumption that the theory is true, but it is not a plausible theory given belief in God.
Re:IANAMB (Score:5, Informative)
The distribution of amino acids is quite interesting. Eight of the amino acids (glycine, alanine, valine, serine, phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and glutamic acid) are from the 20 "standard" amino acids directly coded for in DNA. Seven more are isomers, close homologs, or simple derivatives of the standard seven (isovaline, 2-methylserine, etc.). Ornithine is not found in proteins, but is found as an intermediate both the natural synthesis and breakdown of other amino acids. It is curiously enough the only amino acid found in the vial which is a base- I would have expected more, given all the ammonia in the experiment atmosphere. I would have expected glutamine and asparagine as well, but they're pretty fragile, and if present, may have been lost in the workup.
Five are aminobutyric or aminoisobutyric acids, which are also not coded for by DNA, but are involved in biochemical processes (the best known example is gamma-aminobutryric acid, GABA, a neurotransmitter). No sulfur in the vial, so the absence of cysteine and methionine is unsurprising. Proline is absent, but in organisms, it is formed from an enzyme-catalyzed ring formation from glutamic acid, so it may not form easily in test tubes.
Phenylalanine was the only aromatic amino acid found, which is unsurprising, given the complexity- in organisms, they tend to be synthesized by multistep enzyme-catalyzed routes, and most organisms high on the food chain have lost this ability. Notably, phenylalanine seems to be present in the vial at about one-millionth the concentration of glycine, so its production is a pretty rare event. And all of the amino acids produced were racemic mixtures, whereas nearly all amino acids utilized in nature are the L-enantiomer. It is still a mystery as to when homochirality first arose.
Re:First cell walls (Score:3, Informative)
I don't remember what I've been told at 9th grade, but as of now (2008) there's not much about "biologists having cracked the problem of life". And unlike you, I'm constantly dealing with these matters (IAAMBAABC, where "AABC" stands for "and a biochemist").
Thanks for the nice reading which directly contradicts your opinion:
See?
Re:Warning: religious comment. Proceed with cautio (Score:3, Informative)
I can't understand one can be an intelligent being and believe in $Deity. The quick answer is: in light of religion, independant thought dies.
On a side-note, I can't think of a reason why you would want to conjure up a 'being' to create our universe. Where did the being come from? What created that being? If that being could exist forever out of nothing, then why not the universe by and of itself?
You could do worse than to read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins for a more thorough argumentation, if you can spare the time. Be warned, it isn't a very 'nice' book by most standards, but is sincere, rather complete and gives theists and deists a view from the other side of the isle. A view that they'll likely (hopefully?) never forget.
People 'need' religion like they need being set on fire.
queue the theist burning me to a crisp.
(It's well worth it, too.)