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Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

phys.org

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Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#171

Post by kmaitreys »

pfdietz wrote: post #157
kmaitreys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you assuming couple of asteroids? Life first appeared 3.5 billion years ago. The frequency of an asteroid impact on Earth is ~500,000 years.

> The frequency of an asteroid impact on Earth is ~500,000 years. Surely you could make this figure be anything you want just by scaling up or down the size of an object you call an asteroid. So as stated it's meaningless.

Fair. That number is for a rock of size 1 km.

https://catalina.lpl.arizona.edu/faq/how-often-do-asteroids-...

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#172

Post by pfdietz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #169
pfdietz wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a tremendous amount of confidently stated bullshit on the issue of OoL that I have long since lost all patience with. What's your problem with the debunking of falsehood?

You asked "does it contain ribose"; I answered (with a reputable source) in the affirmative. Where's the falsehood?

I also asked about other things you have conveniently forgotten to mention there.

The overarching falsehood is that identification of biologically relevant molecules at 200 ppb levels, in a soup of tens of thousands of other chemicals, moves the needle any in figuring out OoL.

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#174

Post by nomel »

adrian_b wrote: post #134
nomel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because there is no source of energy for it. Couldn't it have started in the accretion disk?

There not only there was no known source of energy for the synthesis of organic polymers, but also everything, with the exception of interstellar dust particles, was in a gaseous state, not suitable for forming the structure of a living being.

It appears all the "disk" labels are categorical. The concept I'm trying to find the name for is the continuous, slow, asymptotic reduction in the number of disjoint particles/collections spinning around a star. All the relevant "disk" labels would probably be all those on the right side of this curve, where water is present.

I would think the Sun, with its photons and charged particles, and the various electrostatics (like triboelectric) involved, would be the energy source. The disk starts, somewhat evenly distributed, with a whole annulus of surfaces in the Goldilockz zone, with water, etc present. Through time, these bounce off one another, eject bits, stick on others, preserve bits in ice, etc, smearing/spreading whatever allowed their synthesis.

Looks like this maybe has merit, with organic molecules found [1].

(I'm far outside by expertise here.)

[1] https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1091674

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#175

Post by asdff »

adrian_b wrote: post #136
asdff wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that is beginning to be appreciated is, if you have building blocks, under the right conditions, you also have self replicating RNA. https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002...

That is not about the replication or self-replication of RNA. The article is about a mechanism that may produce random nucleic acid molecules, i.e. molecules that do not replicate any template. Reactions of this kind, producing random nucleic acids, must have existed long before the appearance of the first self-replicating RNA, thus before the appearance of any nucleic acid that could be inherited by the descendants…

Once you have one RNA it can serve as a template for others.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7496532/

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#176

Post by asdff »

pfdietz wrote: post #147
asdff wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002...

That's not replication, that's polymerization. There's nothing template-directed about it, and as far as I can tell the experiment depends on pure initial conditions (the guanosine monophosphate is not mixed with a plethora of other chemicals that could copolymerize with it.) That purity is the kind of artificiality I was talking about. A bad habit of OoL research is to show that some chemical shows up in trace amoun…

Once you have that initial polymerization, thats it, game over, now you can template right off that.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7496532/

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#177

Post by nikolay »

kakacik wrote: post #150
nikolay wrote: post #107

So what?! This does not prove anything! There are stones all around us, but they don't assemble themselves into beautiful, majestic stone buildings! All ingredients of concrete are around us, but we don't see them turning into concrete and pouring themselves into freeways, bridges, and all kinds of much less complex than living organisms!

So what? We are not really experienced in judging how chemical processes work across (a half of) billion year timespan. Or how can intense lighting and volcanic activity across similar timespans affect the probabilities of outcomes. And so on

Why is this process not ongoing now, then, when there are tons of prefab elements of life, i.e., it should be easier today than it was a billion years ago? A billion years is not as long as you think!

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#178

Post by pfdietz »

asdff wrote: post #176
pfdietz wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not replication, that's polymerization. There's nothing template-directed about it, and as far as I can tell the experiment depends on pure initial conditions (the guanosine monophosphate is not mixed with a plethora of other chemicals that could copolymerize with it.) That purity is the kind of artificiality I was talking about. A bad habit of OoL research is to show that some chemical shows up in trace amoun…

Once you have that initial polymerization, thats it, game over, now you can template right off that. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7496532/

Again, implausible purity there. I'll add the tetramers used as the components are also much larger than the nucleotides in the Ryugu paper, so would be present in much lower concentrations.

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#179

Post by GetTheFacts »

vpribish wrote: post #106
twodave wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize you're just replying in kind to the GP, who wasn't very nice himself. I also think it's not necessary to feed such trolls in a way that insults all the religious folks who do enjoy this site and don't try to push our faith on others.

I thought he was being tactfully humorous, yous daves. And you counted that as an insult?! jesus.

It's okay. I appreciate the cover, but it's important to let this oppressed, hunted, hated and endangered group have their say.

There is, after all, a war on Christmas, Christians and Christianity.

Christian enclaves are being attacked and Christians are being murdered in the thousands every week, just for being Christian.

Hundreds of decent, god-fearing Christian women are being raped daily by strong, manly Muslim men. Their strong muscles rippling under their tight clothes, stirring up strong, lustful feelings among the faithful Christian men.

It's no wonder that folks are kind of touchy. If you risked being shot, blown up, cuckolded or otherwise made dead or humiliated every time you went to a church, made the sign of the cross or put a "Jesus is my Co-pilot" bumper sticker on your vehicle, you'd be concerned wouldn't you?

And that happens every day because people hate them for their knowledge of the truth. It's all there in the literal word of god that's in the Holy Bible. Anything else is heresy. And we know what to do with heretics, don't we?

Re: Ryugu asteroid samples contain all DNA and RNA building blocks

#180

Post by make3 »

0x000xca0xfe wrote: post #46
make3 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny talking about non software stuff on HN. I'm sure there's hundreds of papers on simulations and expert analysis of this.

Then please link the best ones? Or write some of your high-level thoughts about it. You don't need to be an expert to be curious. Many here would surely like to know more. That's why non-IT stories are upvoted in the first place.

why me specifically or only though. your comment comes off as peachy and annoying.
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