CERN Lends a Hand To the Origin of Life 69
SpaceKangaroo writes "In May, a small group of chemists and biologists gathered at CERN to get advice from high-energy physics experts on how to 'organize a scientific community from disparate research groups and how to access powerful computational resources.' One guy has already run simulations about the origin of life on the LHC computing grid, finding that a group of 65,000 chemicals has a good chance of creating a 'self-sustaining' system of chemical reactions (similar to life)."
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm thinking that CERN is going to be a vastly expensive and overrated coffee club for the flake of the month club after reading this article.
And if you check what I post - you'll see that I don't actually troll or flamebait. //waiting for the outrage
Re: (Score:2)
"probability that is âoechemically plausible"
That sent me to chuckles....
Gee, I dunno... (Score:1, Funny)
I think I'll hold off on any speculation until I've reviewed the writings of various Bronze Age goatherders on this subject.
Re: (Score:3)
I think I'll hold off on any speculation until I've reviewed the writings of various Bronze Age goatherders on this subject.
Is that supposed to be a clever GNU joke?
Re: (Score:3)
Is that supposed to be a clever GNU joke?
Sounds like a really, really old joke to me.
Like pre-historic.
65000.. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You would prefer them to be an uncompiled program?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But to answer the point, I think it's coincidence.
To generate a Wachterhauser system, you need at least three interacting catalytic cycles where some of the components in one cycle are also components of the other cycle ; thes
Life could have started anywhere (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The universe far older than our solar system or galaxy and keeps getting "older" with each generation of space telescopes.
Yes, it gets a day older, every single day! Those darn kids with their darn space telescopes, get the heck off my lawn!
Age of universe 13.75 billion years... (Score:2)
This may be a little off topic, however I am always confused by the age of the universe being around 13.75 billion years, however the furthest observed object was GRB 090423 is 260 billion light years away.
So, with nothing traveling faster than light, how the hell is this thing 260 billion light years away, shouldn't the max be 13.75 billion light years away, cause nothing travels faster than light?
Can someone explain?
Re: (Score:2)
Easily explained: The actual figure is redshift 8.2, putting it about 13 billion light years away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Life could have started anywhere (Score:4, Insightful)
Estimates of the age of the universe haven't changed in any major way in decades.
Re: (Score:2)
Ahead of the Curve (Score:1)
Seriously, should they not already know how to organize a scientific community for sharing/publishing/researching/peer reviewing stuff? It's not like the field has been around for a while... Also, let's play a game. It's called spot the problems with this statement from the perspective of the scientific method, "One guy has already run simulations ... finding that a group of 65,000 chemicals has a good chance..."
Overall /. editors are busy being morons again, or this was a horribly written article, or a hor
Humans seeking complex answers to simple problems? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Simple?
Yeah, right. Some joker says "Let there be light.", and I end up having to wade through vector calculus and Maxwell's equations.
Re: (Score:2)
Some joker says "Let there be light.", and I end up having to wade through vector calculus and Maxwell's equations.
Or, as the t-shirt that I have says:
God said ...
... and there was light.
<Maxwell's equations>
Re: (Score:2)
What's so hard to understand about the birthday paradox?!
It's a mathematically provable event. Even given the very minuscule chance that a combinational event will occur, such as RNA/DNA/amino acid chains forming, if you increase the number of chances in parallel the probability quickly tends towards 1.
We found that if you take a bunch of sterilized rocks, water, CO2, Methane, etc (stuff that's here, and great quantities in other places in the universe, even in our own solar system), and zap in with s
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently what it means [wikipedia.org] ;).
So why isn't there life on Mars? You are refuting your own point here.
I would s
Re: (Score:2)
Heh. Is there really a biblical passage implying that those goatherds 3000 to 2000 years ago had a concept of negative numbers? I don't recall reading of evidence that even the Greek merchants of 2000 years ago had such a concept, though they had addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Also, I haven't read of anyone in the Middle East treating zero as a number before they learned the trick from India.
But I'd be interested in reading about such things, if there's reliable evidence of them.
Re: (Score:3)
I know most of you don't like that answer, but its much more sane than arguing for a giant explosion out of nothing, some accidental joining of proteins in primordial soup, and billions of years of accidental gene mutation and natural selection culminating in the world as we know it. Believing in either option requires faith, but believing in God takes less faith than believing in that!
Really, think about it.
Hmm. Not sure if troll. Meh, here goes.
We have evidence of the big bang in the form of cosmic background radiation. The big bang is an interesting anomaly, in that we don't know what caused it (that scares the shit out of me -- how do I know one isn't going to happen anywhere at any time!) However, we also see little bangs that sort of mimic big bang processes (supernovae), and evidence of other strange anomalies such as black holes (which compress and heat things beyond imagination). To me, these e
Re:The origin of life, hah, thats easy... (Score:4, Insightful)
giant explosion out of nothing
Sigh - The universe expanded from a singularity, a singularity is not nothing. However that major misconception is the least of the problems in your post.
Re: (Score:1)
Sigh - The universe expanded from a singularity, a singularity is not nothing.
interesting, I agree that I misrepresented that point. So, it sounds like the big bang theory is not an "origin of the universe" theory at all. Its an "evolution" of the universe theory. That point escaped me until now.
So where did the singularity come from?
Re: (Score:1)
Well, by that logic, where did God come from? I'm semi religious a lot of the time and I can't even accept the first cause argument as proof of God. I don't think you're going to get a satisfying answer to the origin of "everything" religion or no.
Re: (Score:2)
To me the Prime Mover arguments falls on its own logic. If the Universe requires a creator, then why is the creator immune from the requirement? If one can posit an entity that does not require a beginning, then an application of Occam's Razor will remove the unnecessary entity and arrive at the conclusion that the easiest explanation is to give that particular property to the Universe itself.
Re: (Score:2)
It is pretty well established philosophically that there is no purely logical way to prove or disprove and existence of God (as usually imagined in the Christian) doctrine [wikipedia.org].
After all these kind of arguments have been going on for about forever.
It's called believe for a good reason. I don't mind believers of whatever persuasion as long as they don't stray onto the turf of science.
The catholic church after fighting this with their considerable power throughout the centuries finally wised up to the fact that t [boston.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The singularity is technically a point at which equations break down. The singularity at the beginning of the Big Bang is a point at which current physics breaks down. There are notions that the whole thing could have started as a quantum fluctuation. Brane theory has other ideas. At the end of the day, we don't know yet. Inserting God into the equation does nothing to help us explain the origin of the universe. Since God can explain all possible observations, ultimately invocation of such a being exp
Re: (Score:2)
So where did the singularity come from?
In science it's ok to say "we don't know", that answer may be unsatisfying but at least it's honest.
Re: (Score:2)
What you've done is formulated an argument from incredulity. That is not a critique. That's just an expression of prejudice.
Re: (Score:1)
its the easiest answer because it allows you not to think or comprehend or try to comprehend.
I still can't get my head around infinity.
"Believing in either option requires faith, but believing in God takes less faith than believing in that!"
no, the first option is still being worked on so not a final answer - its a beta version - and the latter option is complete bollocks
Re: (Score:2)
Option two: A fully formed sentient entity posessing omnipotent powers and intelliect beyond description ready-loaded with all the knowledge that could ever be known appeared, apparently spontainously.
Hmm... I admit, option one does sound unlikely. But it's still a lot more plausible than option two.
And the answer is... (Score:2)
42.
Stupid Waste (Score:1)
So while we're wasting energy, resources, and brain power on cosmogony, the Chinese are applying all of that to what we have now. [slashdot.org]
Western science needs to get over itself, accept what we have, and move on to making our lives better.
Re: (Score:1)
Who the hell are you? the universal accountant working on the budget for project "human progress" ?
Similar to life != life (Score:2)
Either its alive or its dead. There really isnt a middle ground here. Its not mostly alive, or mostly dead. Its one or the other. Wake me up when its anything except dead.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you could define "alive" and "dead".
Re: (Score:1)
YEAH! And wake me up when the Wright brothers have achieved spaceflight!
Re: (Score:2)
What about viruses? When they're just floating around they're not really alive. But as soon as they latch onto an appropriate cell, they start replicating, etc.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Either its alive or its dead. There really isnt a middle ground here. Its not mostly alive, or mostly dead. Its one or the other.
You've clearly never explored contents of a feral fridge.
Apologies for what's written below. (Score:1)
'... a group of 65,000 chemicals has a good chance of creating a 'self-sustaining' system of chemical reactions (similar to life).'
KIRK: Bones, what can you tell me about these 65,000 chemicals?
McCoy: Well, it's similar to life, Jim. But not as we know it.'