Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
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Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#2We'll probably never know for certain, but we are getting closer to models that can account for abiogenesis. It might not have a tangible impact on daily life, but most people would like to know how the whole life thing got started. Is there any practical use for this research? Maybe terraforming?
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#3A fascinating study that tries to solve the most difficult problem in the origin of life: bootstrapping. Nobody has been able to explain how the multitude of complex organic molecules needed to support life got there in the first place.
It's a little like we're trying to reconstruct modern industrial civilization by assuming Dow Chemical exists whenever necessary. Dow and the entire chemical industry arose from a bootstrapping process in which simple feedstocks become ever more complex inputs to ever more specialized industries. The Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without it.
This study looks at the ability of alpha-hydroxy acids to spontaneously assemble semi-permeable compartments ("microdroplets") that could have played an early role, concentrating reactive species and enabling reactions that couldn't take place otherwise. As such, they'd serve as a kind of scaffolding. Useful for a time, and then discarded with the appearance of better structures.
Four out of 5 of these candidates (which are all hydroxy analogs of amino acids), are chiral. The rate of formation, permeability, and durability of the compartments formed might expected to depend on the enantiomeric purity of the starting hydroxy acids.
Surprisingly, the study apparently says nothing about enantioenrichment of the alpha-hydroxy acids. Then again, the study only begins to scratch the surface of what this new chemical system might be capable of.
AFAICT, this is a brand new, highly hackable chemical system with vast potential not just in the origin of life, but across chemistry and biology.
So far, the study only demonstrates inclusion of dyes. The real test will be to get these things to facilitate reactions that would not occur in the surrounding medium.
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#4We'll probably never know for certain, but we are getting closer to models that can account for abiogenesis. It might not have a tangible impact on daily life, but most people would like to know how the whole life thing got started. Is there any practical use for this research? Maybe terraforming?
It's a start to "nanites" as seen in sci-fi.
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#5The problem is that once you start to appreciate the immense complexity in a single, most basic cell, you realize how far away we are from understanding how life got started.
This article would be comparable to some future generation trying to figure out how our computers were made and then stumbling upon factory that could make the cases. The case is important, but relatively trivial part of the machinery. Similarly, the cell membrane is critical (not just important), but very simple compared the molecular machines (and more) involved in all cells.
Personally, I think if someone researches the physics/chemistry/biology deeply enough, he'll get to the conclusion that abiogenesis not possible naturally with the physical laws we have now. I believe this is an opening for a proof that this world is really a simulation.
Anyone else feel like that?
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#6The problem is that once you start to appreciate the immense complexity in a single, most basic cell, you realize how far away we are from understanding how life got started. This article would be comparable to some future generation trying to figure out how our computers were made and then stumbling upon factory that could make the cases. The case is important, but relatively trivial part of the machinery. Similarly…
> The problem is that once you start to appreciate the immense complexity in a single, most basic cell, you realize how far away we are from understanding how life got started.
And we have massive issues with simulating single molecule interactions or protein folding. We are nowhere near simulating a single cell without all its external interactions. Not even remotely close.
The field of molecular simulation is holistically based on shortcuts and abstractions to make something out of that research funding. Supercomputers are crunching away at massively simplified models.
And even if we had single cells working a whole new world of complexity opens up next. Interactions with other cells and even worse, the environment where everything from pH over temperature to pressure and light has to be considered.
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#7The problem is that once you start to appreciate the immense complexity in a single, most basic cell, you realize how far away we are from understanding how life got started. This article would be comparable to some future generation trying to figure out how our computers were made and then stumbling upon factory that could make the cases. The case is important, but relatively trivial part of the machinery. Similarly…
Not really, no: semi-permeable membranes have the ability to spontaneously generate strong energy / concentration gradients and remove external interference from chemical signals. That's a necessity for life as we know it -- nearly all cellular chemical reactions are driven by concentration gradients across membranes.
The "RNA World" hypothesis [0] and the flexibility of RNA as both a self-replicating and catalytic molecule gives us a pretty convincing conceptual pathway to the development of the central dogma of molecular biology we understand today (DNA -> RNA -> Protein) -- especially considering DNA translation mechanisms are nearly entirely powered by ribozymes. Understanding how semipermeable membranes may spontaneously form to "protect" other molecular species like RNA is a pretty foundational step in trying to understand the recipe for the formation of early life.
The simulation hypothesis is fun and all, but I don't think it's a reasonable stand-in for abiogenesis. You're basically invoking God or a Godlike entity at that point, when we have pretty reasonable pathways to conceptualizing the development of early life.
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#8Since reading it somewhere in the distant past, I have become convinced that the moon played a vital part in the origin of life, by creating the tides.
Picture a coastline in early Earth. Tide washes up a bunch of chemicals that get baked in a warm sun, while simultaneously getting exposed to a harsh atmosphere with plenty of energy surges (volcanic/atmospheric).
Tide washes in a bunch of fresh chemicals to reiterate the process.
Rinse & repeat a few hundred billion times.
Given the rarity (AFAIR) of moons as large as ours orbiting planets as small as ours, that might also explain the apparent rarity of life in the cosmos.
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#9Since reading it somewhere in the distant past, I have become convinced that the moon played a vital part in the origin of life, by creating the tides. Picture a coastline in early Earth. Tide washes up a bunch of chemicals that get baked in a warm sun, while simultaneously getting exposed to a harsh atmosphere with plenty of energy surges (volcanic/atmospheric). Tide washes in a bunch of fresh chemicals to reiterate…
Interesting idea that I haven´t thought about before. Thnx for sharing!
Re: Scientists discover chemistry that may help explain the origins of cellular life
#10Since reading it somewhere in the distant past, I have become convinced that the moon played a vital part in the origin of life, by creating the tides. Picture a coastline in early Earth. Tide washes up a bunch of chemicals that get baked in a warm sun, while simultaneously getting exposed to a harsh atmosphere with plenty of energy surges (volcanic/atmospheric). Tide washes in a bunch of fresh chemicals to reiterate…
To be fair, at this point we have no idea how rare is the life in the Universe.