Scientists Create RNA From Primordial Soup 369
Kristina at Science News writes "The RNA world hypothesis proposed 40 years ago suggested that life on Earth started not with DNA but with RNA. Now a team of scientists bolsters this hypothesis, having assembled RNA in the lab from a mixture that resembles what was likely the primordial soup. 'Until now,' Science News reports, 'scientists couldn't figure out the chemical reactions that created the earliest RNA molecules.' The new work started the RNA assembly chemistry from a different angle than what earlier work had tried."
I thought... (Score:2, Funny)
I thought that the headline was "Scientists Create RNA From Primordial Soap", which would have been interesting in a completely different way.
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GAA TAC ATC GCA CAT TAG TAT ATT GAG ACT
(Yes, I know that's DNA and not RNA, but it's really hard to make words with a U and no T).
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EYIAH*YIET? I don't get it. Anyway, there was no start codon there.
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Informative)
The convention is to write in the 5' to 3' direction and usually the sense strand. Unless I'm getting things backwards again (and I often am, can't keep left and right straight either) 3-TAC-5 in the antisense strand is what is actually used to copy the mRNA transcript, which is 5-AUG-3, the same as the sense strand 5-ATG-3. The t-RNA has UAC which corresponds to it.
So, unless I'm once again confused, that would be two types of backward.
Anyway, there is no message in any frame, nor on the complementary strand.
http://www.expasy.ch/tools/dna.html [expasy.ch]
5'3' Frame 1
EYIAH-YIET
5'3' Frame 2
NTSHISILR
5'3' Frame 3
IHRTLVY-D
3'5' Frame 1
SLNILMCDVF
3'5' Frame 2
VSIY-CAMY
3'5' Frame 3
SQYTNVRCI
and reversing the sequence, in case it was written 3-5 also had nothing
TCA GAG TTA TAT GAT TAC ACG CTA CAT AAG
5'3' Frame 1
SELYDYTLHK
5'3' Frame 2
QSYMITRYI
5'3' Frame 3
RVI-LHAT-
3'5' Frame 1
LM-RVII-L-
3'5' Frame 2
LCSV-SYNS
3'5' Frame 3
YVACNHITL
I also did a quick blast search of the human genome and came up with no hits. I started trying to set the parameters to allow for mismatches (I don't use it all that often) when I realized that I'm probably completely missing the joke.
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Re:I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's apply that logic to the first sighting of sperm fertilizing an egg.
1. Laboratory conditions. Check.
2. "The new findings suggest a possible method for traits to be passed from both mother and father to child..." Check.
3. Proof that babies come from sex. Not a chance.
4. Someone with a time machine that can verify that my mother would degrade herself like that? Nope.
Fertilization still remains philosophical at best, NOT science.
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that we have shown that it can happen tends to support the hypothesis that it did happen, because we know that RNA is a part of all living things on Earth and we know that it had to come from somewhere.
Unless you have a better explanation, one that fits into a naturalistic framework as that is the framework within which science exists.
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that the people you're arguing with are the same people who, despite countless examples that sex can lead to pregnancy, and zero examples of virgins getting pregnant, still believe Mary was a virgin.
It's quite clear that these are not people who believe in evidence supporting hypotheses.
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Keep in mind that the people you're arguing with are the same people who, despite countless examples that sex can lead to pregnancy, and zero examples of virgins getting pregnant, still believe Mary was a virgin.
It's quite clear that these are not people who believe in evidence supporting hypotheses.
Actually, there have been examples of virgins getting pregnant, but not without exposure to sperm.
</nitpick>
Re:I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're conflating an event with a process. The process of abiogenesis (generating life from non-living matter) is a perfectly valid scientific field, of which this experiment was a part.
The event(s) in the past that are hypothesised to be the initiation of life on the planet are a related, but ultimately independent claim that despite your objection can also be investigated scientifically. Learning about the processes of generating life from non living matter are simply a necessary precursor to investigating the actual event of the origin of life on the earth.
You don't need a time machine to scientifically establish past events. You simply need to be able to investigate the evidence that exists today. Applying your rationale to your own beliefs about the origin of life: presumably you have none since you don't have a time machine to travel back and see it for yourself. Presumably you believe that the claims of creationists are inherently empty, since they don't have a time machine to travel back and view the garden of eden for themselves.
Abiogenesis.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Abiogenesis.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Abiogenesis.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Abiogenesis.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Absolutely, cdk007's video explaining the Dr. Szostak sequence is really excellent. It gives you a real sense for how non-random and almost inevitable it was.
Lipids + ameno acids -> self replicator, the rest is an exercise left for the reader that this recent result helps fill in. Its awesome.
Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Informative)
Demonstrating that another link in the evolutionary chain can happen without conscious intervention (spontaneously and mechanically) does not demonstrate the non-existence of an intelligent designer.
It, at best, removes a point that was previously used to defend ID.
But, logically, the inability to prove something does not constitute a disproof (that would be the fallacy of Argumentum ad Ignorantium).
Disclaimer: I am not an ID proponent. I am just a logician.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Insightful)
Demonstrating (something) does not demonstrate the non-existence of an intelligent designer.
Indeed; nothing can.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Funny)
God crushing you nonbelievers with rain of sulfur and fire would settle the matter nicely.
I'm not holding my breath though.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it wouldn't settle anything. Any being sufficiently more powerful than you can convince you that it is omnipotent. Any being sufficiently more clever than you could convince you that it is omniscient. An advanced alien race, claiming to be God, could determine who believes in God and who doesn't, and rain sulfur and fire on the nonbelievers, so a rain of fire and sulfur from something claiming to be God would not prove God exists, sorry.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmmmm couldn't convince Kirk:
"What does God need with a starship?"
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:4, Insightful)
If God exists, and if he's omniscient and omnipotent, he could design an event guaranteed to convince every non-believer in the world of his existence. The fact that he doesn't means either:
a) he doesn't care, so why bother worshiping him?
b) he doesn't exist, so why bother worshiping him?
c) he likes to play mind games, so why bother worshiping him?
You forgot... (Score:5, Funny)
d) God is actually a woman. Powerful, but insecure, and she needs you to show her how much you love her all the time. If you don't, she'll get depressed and eat her weight in mint-chocolate chip ice cream, in which case she'll end up omnipresent in more ways than one.
He didn't forget (Score:5, Funny)
'Likes to play mind games' was option c)
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d) YOU like to play mind games by laying out ridiculously narrow terms for god to demonstrate his existence.
Thinking that there is no possible evidence for god's existence is retarded and only demonstrates how little ability the person saying it has for stepping back and looking at the situation. Life is complex and it works well. It's not proof, it's evidence. The laws of physics yield a consistent universe. It's not proof, it's evidence.
The ability of otherwise intelligent people to skew this issue by
Evidence of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Life is complex and it works well. It's not proof, it's evidence. The laws of physics yield a consistent universe. It's not proof, it's evidence.
Both of these things are only evidence of themselves. Nothing more. You cannot logically extrapolate these things into anything more than they are without direct evidence of something more. No matter how much evidence the universe gives of its own existence, it does not point to anything beyond that, be it God or invisible unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, sauce be upon him, or anything else. The current body of evidence points only to its own existence.
If you want to posit the existence of God, based on the evidence provided by the universe, then you need direct evidence of God (well, you also need a clear, falsifiable definition of God). Otherwise, Occam's Razor gives us the more likely conclusion. Given the same body of evidence, the simpler explanation tends to be the correct explanation, unless more evidence appears to show otherwise.
In this case, the body of evidence: The universe.
- H0.) The universe just exists.
- H1.) The universe exists because God created it. God just exists.
Given the same body of evidence, H0 is the more likely explanation, and there is no REASON to assume H1 without further evidence.
While you cannot prove a negative, in science, lack of evidence for H1 is provisional evidence for H0. Also, any scientist knows that you can NEVER prove anything based on observation. You can only disprove it OR decrease the likelihood of its falseness.
NB: Most of the "you" in this post is the general "you" not a specific "you" to the parent post.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Insightful)
Only someone who believes in god would see those as evidence of god. Don't feel bad though. Your ape hierarchical mind is probably hardwired to believe in god. Believing in hierarchy is good for the group.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:4, Funny)
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You may be looking for this quote. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?
-Epicurus, 300 BCE
The refrain from fundamentalists, Christian and Muslim and Jew alike, is because he is God, and he said so, according to this really old book. Which is usually the inerrant word of God - they just can't agree on which version is the "perfect" word. Once you try to engage someone who firmly believes that they know what God thinks, there's no use in trying to apply logic.
One of my favorite David Cross bits is where he's asking out loud for the name of the television show where there's this guy on stage, and everyone in the television audience believes he can talk to the dead. The crowd in front of David keeps shouting out "Crossing Over!"
And then David says, "Oh no, it was church, it was church."
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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able, and willing?
Then why is their evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God
~Epicurus
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If you're genuinely asking this question and want some answers send me a msg : )
Trifecta! (Score:5, Insightful)
You just made three unsupported and ridiculous assertions as if they were a logical argument. Nice hat trick.
Religion does not need to rely on faith. Buddhism certainly doesn't, but I know some consider that a philosophy, not a religion. Still, it is listed as a major world religion, and it requires no one to take anything on faith.
Predestination and free will are both pointless human speculations unsupported by any human experiences, and if free will were real, it would be a curse, not a gift, especially considering your God's planned punishments for going against arbitrary rules that you have no way of knowing came from Him.
If God were to be in residence and free will were real, God's presence would not diminish free will. So what? At most, nobody would choose to sin anymore. I don't choose to froom, either, and my not being able to choose to froom does not diminish any free will I may have.
But people could still choose to sin knowing God existed, I know I would, just to register my disapproval of God's arbitrary and unjust actions. Infinite punishment for finite transgressions, my ass. Fuck you, God, I'm going out to fuck a guy JUST TO PISS YOU OFF, YOU SHIT! I'm not even gay, I'll probably hate it, but I'm going to do it just because you said you'd torture me forever if I did. I don't negotiate with terrorists.
Re:Trifecta! (Score:5, Insightful)
Brahma and the Divas are Hinduism, not Buddhism. Buddha explicitly said, "Don't believe anything anyone tells you, even me, unless it agrees with your logic and understanding of the world."
Capitalizing 'Free Will' does not make it apparent. Free will (if it exists) is a curse, because we have no way of distinguishing God's will from that of a charlatan posing as the voice of God, be that voice internal or external. Supposedly, God judges us by these rules that we have no way of verifying. Punishes us infinitely, according to some faiths. We have to 'take it on faith' but we could be taking the word of an impostor, a false God, and thus doomed by the real God's rules.
Look, I understand what you've been taught. You don't need to explain it to me, it isn't as though I haven't given it serious consideration. I'm just not buying that the world works in any way remotely related to the way you think it does.
Don't take it as an insult, in my way of looking at things, being deluded is just another state of mind. It isn't good or bad, it just is.
You don't even acknowledge or respond to my arguments, I don't know why I bother. Oh yes, because I like doing this. I have no way of knowing for sure that I am not the deluded one, so I always listen. But to believe in God, I would have to rearrange so many of my ideas, I don't even know where I would begin at this point.
Re:Trifecta! (Score:4, Insightful)
From another point of view, the sane scientifical point of view, free will cannot coexist with physical laws either. Any physical law binds events together forcing an outcome. If the grand unification theory [wikipedia.org] is unveiled it will bind all events occurring in the universe together. Thus any action has an expected reaction. This of course means that everything we humans do would be mere reactions to ourselves and our surroundings. Thus with enough information I would be able to "force" any human into doing whatever I please. And the fact that I "chose" to do so would be a mere reaction to another input forged by someone/something else. The controversy of this is of course that if proven it means that no human is liable for any action and that destiny does infact exist. The cool part is that this would render timetraveling into the future no longer impossible due to the uncertainty of the future, however other laws might still kill the theory.
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Buddhists often adopt the beliefs of other cultures. Hinduism developed the belief in karma and reincarnation. Buddhism reinterpreted that belief to refer to the individual moments of our lives.
A sense impression arrives at the 'sense gates,' an abstract way of looking at a part of pre-consciousness. Notable sense impressions, as determined by 'previous life karma,' otherwise known as the value judgments we have placed on previous moments, are promoted towards consciousness.
The sense impression (including s
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Oh, but it is logical (when arguing these things, you must realise that there is an answer for everything...:) ). To repeat summarized from the link you haven't yet read, Love requires free will or it is not love. Free will without consequences is not free. If God desires his creation to love him, he must give them the ability to not love him(i.e. sin). Since God is Love, he may not change love to make it possible without choice - or he would not be self consistent.
Further, and more controversial, if God de
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Damnit, I hope my house never catches on fire. The fact that I know the fire service exists means that I can no longer have any faith in them to come to my aid.
Oh wait, this whole "you can only have faith in something you don't know to exist" thing I keep hearing is a load of bollocks, phew. Notice even the bible says that demons can believe in god existing but not be saved. Faith is separate from knowledge of existence. I think you need some more plausible reasons for why your god doesn't make it apparent
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d)it's a test of faith.
I'll be dead before I take that final exam.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Insightful)
d)it's a test of faith.
No, that's not d), that's just c)he likes to play mind games, so why bother worshiping him?
"tests of faith" are idiotic mind games. What sort of a worthwhile supreme beings gives us good brains with the ability to reason and only rewards the people who are complete failures?
Obviously a only sleazebag beneath our contempt.
The OP covered all possible possibilities.
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This sort of scenario presents itself in any situation where proof is desired. It's called the brain-in-a-vat syndrome.
This is why proof often isn't a very good standard of what to believe. You can't really have definite answers without axioms, whether your answer is in itself an axiom or is based on such. Math is an example of this, the most complicated such system I can think of, yet interestingly the most useful as well. But I digress.
The reasoned conclusion that your deceitful "sufficiently powerful/cle
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How do you know it doesn't happen? Sadistic aliens could have been behind any so-called miracle from any or all of the holy books. Maybe Sodom and Gomorrah were just aliens on a bender, and all that fire and brimstone was merely the rocket exhaust from an ET driving drunk. You don't know and neither do I.
I don't know whether God exists or not, and I don't care. His existence or lack thereof has absolutely no bearing on me or my life, I will live my life as I 'choose,' and I don't know or care whether choice
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No it wouldn't. It certainly doesn't disprove an intelligent designer. One could argue that it would prove the existence of an IDer, however it does not.
It's eminently possible, even under these circumstances, that the universe evolved atheistically, until some asshole god/demiurge decided to take credit for it and toast Sol III.
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I would - burning sulphur is not good for your lungs.
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Affirmanti non neganti incumbit probatio (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed; nothing can.
Nor indeed is there any requirement or reason to "demonstrate the non-existence of X," where there is no evidence for the putative existence of X.
On a side not, this discovery doesn't demonstrate the non-existence of the tooth fairy either.
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Just to add: this is called a non-falsifiable theory [wikipedia.org].
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Demonstrating that another link in the evolutionary chain can happen without conscious intervention (spontaneously and mechanically) does not demonstrate the non-existence of an intelligent designer.
As a logician, what are your thoughts on the minimum description-length principle? The MDL principle suggests that it's a mistake to add a God to the equation if there's no specific need for one.
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"does not demonstrate the non-existence of an intelligent designer."
Of course. That's because nothing can prove the non-existence of a sufficiently powerful intelligent designer. When Newton proposed that universal gravitation could predict the motion of the planets, did that prevent the Hand of God itself, or some other immensely powerful intelligent designer, from actively guiding the planets around in their orbits in accordance with what we perceive as gravitation?
No. But that's because it is not real
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Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:4, Insightful)
Capital-I-capital-D Intelligent Design is a political movement based on getting anti-evolution viewpoints brought into science curricula.
The mere belief in a God who created and designed the universe is not what this is about. If it were, then every religious scientist would call themselves IDers. It's not, and they don't.
These people are not interested in logic. If they were, they would know that the burden of proof was on them and not the other way around.
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:5, Informative)
Stop right there. You couldn't even make it half-way through the first sentence without being wrong about something, impressive...
:P) and the diversity of life, not where life itself comes from.
Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution is the concept that organisms change over time due to external forces/stimuli (be they natural or artificial). It has nothing to do with the origin of life whatsoever, period, end of story.
Evolution is about the origin of species (an apt name for a book might I add
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But then you repeat yourself.
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Demonstrating that another link in the evolutionary chain can happen without conscious intervention (spontaneously and mechanically) does not demonstrate the non-existence of an intelligent designer.
Are you familiar with the scientific process? This was yet another falsifiable test for the currently best supported version of the theory of abiogenesis. It was a test the theory passed, adding more support for said theory in that it made a useful prediction.
It, at best, removes a point that was previously used to defend ID.
ID is not logically defensible. It is not science. There is no hypothesis of intelligent design that I've ever been able to find.
But, logically, the inability to prove something does not constitute a disproof (that would be the fallacy of Argumentum ad Ignorantium).
The logical structure of the scientific method is well known. We even covered it in my intro to logic class and in numerous
Re:Ignoratio Elenchi (Score:4, Insightful)
The mistake people typically make is to stop here and imagine that the odds of existence of a god or gods are therefore equal with the non-existence of same.
The fact is, nobody can prove or disprove that the earth is filled with magical pink unicorns that simply move, scale back in size a little, and make some dirt for us to play in when we dig or deploy sensors. If you dig or scan for them, you won't find them. They're magical. You can't disprove them, and you can't prove them, either.
So now, is there a reasonable place to stand to trumpet that you have faith that these magical pink unicorns exist?
No.
And that is precisely the reason that the argument about proof or disproof of God(s) brings absolutely no validity to any religious claim.
We have, for various reasons, developed a tool called "science" that allows us to determine some general behaviors about the universe. We can apply the resulting tests and rules to ideas (yes, even ideas about Gods) in order to see if they are rational ideas.
When we do this to the magical unicorns, they rather quickly fail the test and we will immediately discard the idea.
A mentally healthy human being, not injured by lack of data, and/or gullibility, and/or fear of the unknown, will apply these same tests and rules to God(s), and discard the idea(s) just as quickly, and for precisely the same reasons as the idea of the magical pink unicorns.
Vulnerability to religion (diagram) [wordpress.com]
Godless Science loses *another* battle! (Score:5, Funny)
"Sutherland says [...] 'The key turned out to be the order that the ingredients are added and the way you put them together -- like making a soufflé.'"
How much clearer does it need to be made to you amoral materialists that cooking dinner needs *a Chef*?
The only thing I regret is that Sutherland compared God's Work to making a "soufflé". Couldn't he have used a good Christian American recipe?
Like omelette!
Re:Godless Science loses *another* battle! (Score:5, Funny)
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Hmm, -1 Troll. Must be a lot of religious nuts with Mod points this evening. (o:
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Abiogenesis.... Take that ID-iots!
Scientists stitching together molecules like a chemical zipper to recreate a simple RNA sounds a lot more like "Design" and a lot less like "abiogenesis" to me, actually...
Quoting Sutherland's team from TFA:
It's not as simple as putting compounds in a beaker and mixing it up. It's a series of steps. You still have to stop and purify and then do the next step, and that probably didn't happen in the ancient world.
Seriously, watching Abiogenesis fiends bickering with "Intelligent Design" supporters over who is more wrong makes me think I'm back on Digg when it was used as Richard Dawkin's RSS feed.
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1) A bunch of scientists who know what RNA looks like found a complex way or mixing and meshing chemicals together and purifying the process then repeating until they artificially created RNA.
2) They admit it wouldn't have worked in nature on its own...
3) People suddenly claim it disproves ID. Hell, all they DID was PROVE ID. The whole fucking article says "we, a bunch of intelligent people, used advanced chemistry to make something that we admit wo
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Only for sufficient values of omnipotence.
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Abiogenesis.... Take that ID-iots!
I'm not an ID proponent at all and I realize you're at least half-joking, but this research finding doesn't do anything to disprove ID. In fact, if anything it somewhat favors it. ID asserts that there are certain aspects of the universe and life forms that require a directed force by an intelligent being. IOW, it requires planning. This research demonstrates that a lot of steps and manipulation that are NOT present in nature, were required to end up with RNA. It didn't happen "naturally". Ergo, "inte
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Actually, what this research demonstrates is that with the basic components, it IS possible to create RNA.
The research in no way proclaims to have found the way in which RNA was created in nature. It only proves that, without making any claims as to method, it is possible.
I do not believe that they claim that they have found the -ONLY- way in which RNA can be created based on the raw components.
Clearly... (Score:4, Funny)
A wizard did it.
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not that big of a deal (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not that big of a deal (Score:5, Insightful)
they found a reaction pathway - that does not prove it happened that way - I too thought the article title indicated spontaneous generation of RNA from primordial soup.
I have always thought that spontaneous was the wrong word for this theory. Spontaneous implies *NO* external force. There could have been (I think there probably was) forces such as comets, lava, boiling water, glass, wind, fire, water, and mixture of those or just about anything else. To show that it is possible, with what was known to exist at that time is not proof that it happened exactly that way, but it could have. And I highly doubt we will ever figure out how it actually happened.
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I disagree - spontaneous in this sense would indicate self-assembly of RNA - under the right conditions. All the other things you mention is simply part of the "pot" - be it a very large and chaotic pot.... I would think no human chemist was around to play with the soup to nudge things in the right direction. That is what is happening here.
Oh I see... for you to believe in this theory we can't try to speed along the process with all these scientist and chemist doing things with things and stuff, right? Just wait a few billion years to study the next go-round?
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Possibly not, but it is still nice to see a proof of concept actually carried out for a theory. Now if only the detractors would do the same.
Deja vu (Score:4, Funny)
a mixture that resembles what was likely the primordial soup.
Deja vu: I just had primordial soup for lunch.
Re:Deja vu (Score:4, Funny)
Deja vu: I just had primordial soup for lunch.
Great, just great. Do you know how many potential species you just wiped out? The right to lifers are going to have you up against the wall in a nanosecond.
Re:Deja vu (Score:4, Funny)
> I just had primordial soup for lunch.
Isn't that what was in that fridge in San Jose?
That's Nothing! (Score:2)
I've assembled a Windows XP kernel from Campbell's cream of leek soup.
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Would that be "cream of memory leek", "cream of resource leek", or "cream of taking a leek" soup?
Misleading Article Title (Score:5, Insightful)
A flowchart might be helpful (Score:5, Informative)
Previously, the sticking point was that there was no logical way for the sugar (ribose) to spontaneously attach to the base. Organisms use enzymes to transfer a ribose phosphate group to a base, but of course, in the time before enzymes could be coded for, that wouldn't be possible. This sequence neatly sidesteps that, and also provides a more logical reason for phosphate to be involved; it is the reagent that attacks that tricyclic pyrimidosugar, breaking the bond to form ribocytidine phosphate.
Coincidentally, UV light deaminates cytosine to form uracil, which is where that second base comes from. This is why DNA uses thymine instead of uracil, by the way- as the archival storage medium for our genetic information, it would be unwise to have one base easily interconvert into another. The shorter expected lifetime of RNA means the interconversion is not a concern, though.
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Bender!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One word.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That they accidentally got RNA and thought they created it themselves? Did you read the article?
âoeBut while this is a step forward, itâ(TM)s not the whole picture,â Ferris points out. âoeItâ(TM)s not as simple as putting compounds in a beaker and mixing it up. Itâ(TM)s a series of steps. You still have to stop and purify and then do the next step, and that probably didnâ(TM)t happen in the ancient world.â
Sutherland and his team can so far make RNA molecules with two different bases, and there are still another two bases to figure out.
Re:One word.... (Score:4, Insightful)
... and holy Unicode-less Slashdot, Batman. :-(
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So in other words: Even more chance of contamination.
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Contamination.
'Nuff said.
Obviously. I'm sure they never accounted and corrected for that possibility. After all, it's not like these people are the type who would know anything about basic experimental science or anything.
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From what I know plenty of previous attempts or rather "succesful" attemps have been shown to be due to contamination.
Now, I'm not saying these people don't know what they are doing, I'm saying the chance of contamination with discrete amounts of RNA / RNA bases / whatever in my eyes are probably far greater than the chance of actually making RNA.
(and no, I'm not some sort of creationist bastard heh)
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What are your credentials, and why should we believe your arbitrary assertion? Could you give examples of past failures due to contamination? Could you tell us, given the particular set up of this experiment, what the possible vector of contamination is? Could you tell us why you think this particular experiment could not have created RNA? What are the difficulties that this set up does not address?
Or maybe you could just admit that 'contamination' is a total shot in the dark with no evidence to back it up.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I earn a living (well, if you can call it that) doing biochemical research, but frankly I don't care if you believe me (RTFA, it pretty much speaks for itself).
Sorry, not bored enough to give examples, but using google scholar will most definitely help you (if you are that bored ;-).
Possible vector of contamination? Are you serious? Try just about everything they may have come into contact with.... removal of "all things resembling RNA" is much easier than it sounds... destruction of RNA strands, yes... qui
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Contamination. 'Nuff said.
Obviously. I'm sure they never accounted and corrected for that possibility. After all, it's not like these people are the type who would know anything about basic experimental science or anything.
Sometimes even the researchers think it's contamination, but the story's too good for journalists to pass up. A memorable example:
"Scientists at University of Alabama sequenced a 130-nucleotide long mitochondrial DNA sequence from dinosaur vertebrae, and found that it was 100% homologous to mitochondrial DNA from turkeys. However, the scientists themselves 'remain quite sceptical of our own work' and noted that they had been consuming turkey sandwiches in the laboratory."
Even though the triceratops-turkey
Re: (Score:2)
Frank N. Furter: It was an ACCIDENT!
Re:rna vs dna (Score:5, Informative)
DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is generally double stranded (classic double helix) and is more robust than RNA (ribonucleic acid) which is generally single stranded. Both use a base 4 code of triplets of certain additions to contain information (normally denoted C,G,A and T). However, RNA has a slightly different set of bases (having uracil in the place of thymine so U instead of T). Almost all life on earth uses DNA to store information in its long-term form and makes RNA when it needs to make proteins. This is a process known as transcription http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcription_(genetics) [wikipedia.org].
The primary reason why this discovery is a big deal is that there is a hypothesis that all life started out as using RNA and only later evolved to use DNA. This is known as the RNA world hypothesis- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis [wikipedia.org] This is a very popular idea in abiogenesis research. There are number of avenues of evidence for thinking this: Essentially, the major problem with a DNA first model of abiogenesis is that DNA cannot normally reproduce itself without proteins. Moreover, DNA cannot produce proteins without the aid of RNA. However, properly chosen RNA strands can reproduce themselves without protein assistance. Moreover, RNA can directly mediate the synthesis of proteins. So if one can find a procedure that can plausibly produced RNA then one can handle most of the problems of abiogenesis in one fell swoop.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
RNA, being simpler, surely came before DNA, but before RNA there'd have been much simpler self-replicators:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg [youtube.com]
The precursors to life would have been nothing more than chemical chain reactions that consumed other chemicals in the environment. Separate a number of these reactions from each other (all consuming the same chemicals - i.e. competing - in the environment) and you've got the beginnings of evolution. Anything as complex as RNA may have taken millions of years,
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, if you RTFA, the Scientist who discovered this did it by trying all possible combinations - an effort that took him about 10 years. It doesn't seem in the least bit implausible, rather the opposite, that nature would have also tried all combinations given a few million rock pools and few million years of random change.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Its not as simple as putting compounds in a beaker and mixing it up. Its a series of steps. You still have to stop and purify and then do the next step, and that probably didnt happen in the ancient world.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, lets say you have a few billion gallons of "soup" and you let it stew for a few hundred million years...
With enough trials low probability events become near certainties.