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Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

nature.com

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Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#71

Post by MauranKilom »

unexaminedlife wrote: post #59

Has anyone proven that the "soup" has to be liquid? I'm no chemist, but I was curious one day so I looked through the chemical composition of humans, and was surprised to see that almost all of the base elements from the periodic table that we are composed of are lighter than air. Just ran the numbers again for this post: ~96.2% oxygen,hydrogen,nitrogen,carbon ~ 3.8% calcium,phosphorus, potassium,sulfur,sodium, chlor…

Of those elements you list, only hydrogen and nitrogen are "lighter than air" (in the sense that they are commonly found in gaseous form with molecular weight below that of the air average).

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#72

Post by outworlder »

naniwaduni wrote: post #69
unexaminedlife wrote: post #59

Has anyone proven that the "soup" has to be liquid? I'm no chemist, but I was curious one day so I looked through the chemical composition of humans, and was surprised to see that almost all of the base elements from the periodic table that we are composed of are lighter than air. Just ran the numbers again for this post: ~96.2% oxygen,hydrogen,nitrogen,carbon ~ 3.8% calcium,phosphorus, potassium,sulfur,sodium, chlor…

> almost all of the base elements from the periodic table that we are composed of are lighter than air This is almost completely gibberish since you don't find atoms in isolation.

> This is almost completely gibberish since you don't find atoms in isolation.

No you don't. You find them in molecules. Nowadays it is a bit tough to find the pure gases in our planet, but they are readily available in high quantities in our universe. In gaseous form, even.

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#73

Post by MauranKilom »

andy_ppp wrote: post #58

I sometimes find the chances of us being here so remote, it can't really be just survival of the fittest can it? There must be other means for evolution to be more intelligently selective. I'm arguing that you'd see some kind of evolved "invisible" hand rather than an actual maker behind all of this.

> it can't really be just survival of the fittest can it?

Why not?

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#74

Post by outworlder »

andy_ppp wrote: post #58

I sometimes find the chances of us being here so remote, it can't really be just survival of the fittest can it? There must be other means for evolution to be more intelligently selective. I'm arguing that you'd see some kind of evolved "invisible" hand rather than an actual maker behind all of this.

No invisible hand is required.

Any life form that has reached the cognitive capability to reason about itself will be amazed by the sheer "coincidence" of their habitat. "wow, isn't it amazing that our planet's atmosphere is composed of the very ammonia we need to survive in?"

No invisible hand required.

Also evolution is "intelligently selective". Surviving and reproducing is a pretty intelligent mechanism. It will find local maxima pretty effectively.

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#75

Post by ExplainLikeIm5 »

jonmc12 wrote: post #9

> Carell’s team has shown how all nucleobases could form under one set of conditions: two separate ponds that cycle through the seasons, going from wet to dry, from hot to cold, and from acidic to basic, and with chemicals occasionally flowing from one pond to the other. I've enjoyed Bruce Damer's explanation of related theory, "The Hot Spring Hypothesis for the Origin of Life". Search "goldilocks chemistry" for some…

Just came here to say, I found this book pretty informative and persuasive: The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393352978/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_...

The book contains some counter arguments against the primordial soup theory

I am not really qualified to comment though.

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#76

Post by EForEndeavour »

joyjoyjoy wrote: post #65

I came across an article about DNA but did not had time to read it and lost it. It was about some ideas why DNA has 4 bases (and not 6 or 8). They also mention why 20 (?) amino acids. It was something similar to degrees of freedom. Not sure where I saw it. hackernews? Might have been Scientific American. I anyone remembers I would appreciate a link.

This Stack Exchange thread has some fascinating answers and links to sources: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/2874/why-are-the...

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#77

Post by jschwartzi »

andy_ppp wrote: post #58

I sometimes find the chances of us being here so remote, it can't really be just survival of the fittest can it? There must be other means for evolution to be more intelligently selective. I'm arguing that you'd see some kind of evolved "invisible" hand rather than an actual maker behind all of this.

Ockham's Razor might be helpful here.

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#78

Post by mrwhizzer »

jeffdavis wrote: post #61
aazaa wrote: post #17

> Carell, an organic chemist, and his collaborators have now demonstrated a chemical pathway that — in principle — could have made A, U, C and G (adenine, uracil, cytosine and guanine, respectively) from basic ingredients such as water and nitrogen under conditions that would have been plausible on the early Earth. The reactions produce so much of these nucleobases that, millennium after millennium, they could have a…

What are the alternative theories that are more plausible, in your opinion?

DNA teleportation.., the recent discussion on HN about the hydrophobic effect of DNA basically proves it is true... naysayers be damned!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_teleportation

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21051949

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cluster

http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/magnetic_electric_effects.html

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#79

Post by [deleted] »

outworlder wrote: post #72
naniwaduni wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> almost all of the base elements from the periodic table that we are composed of are lighter than air This is almost completely gibberish since you don't find atoms in isolation.

> This is almost completely gibberish since you don't find atoms in isolation. No you don't. You find them in molecules. Nowadays it is a bit tough to find the pure gases in our planet, but they are readily available in high quantities in our universe. In gaseous form, even.

[deleted]

Re: Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases

#80

Post by ChuckMcM »

Gatsky wrote: post #57

These abiogenesis experiments are a little strange... they aim to show that something could have happened. Whether that is what actually happened is considered less relevant and in fact can probably never be determined. Does anyone really believe that it is impossible to get spontaneous nucleotide generation under certain conditions (the conditions also being speculative)? The really interesting thing would be findin…

It is the law of large numbers. It goes with the theory that if you buy 100 billion lottery tickets you asymptotically approach 100% chance of winning. In the case of abiogenesis, if you can show that the conditions for this effect were possible, and that those conditions could persist for millions of years, the probability that the "special" one occurs, approaches 100%.

It doesn't explain everything, it is just a link in the chain of things that increases our understanding of our world.

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