Scientists May Have Found How Life Began

[Singularity]

Scientists May Have Found How Life Began - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com

British scientists said on Wednesday that they had figured out key steps in the process by which life on Earth may have emerged from a seething soup of simple chemicals, according to Agence France-Presse.

Genetic information in living organisms today is held in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the famous "double helix" molecule of sugar, phosphate and a base.

But DNA is too sophisticated to have popped up in an instant, and one avenue of thought says its single-stranded cousin, ribonucleic acid, or RNA, came first.

RNA plays a key role in making proteins and, in viruses, is used to store genetic code.

It is chemically similar to DNA but is simpler and tougher in structure, and thus looks like a good candidate for Earth's first information-coding nucleic acid.

But for all its allure, the "RNA first" theory has run into practical problems.

Now a paper published in the British journal Nature by University of Manchester chemists, led by Professor John Sutherland, ventures that an RNA-like synthesis took place through a series of chemical reactions and an important intermediate substance.

While this may be controversial among a number of people, it's still very interesting regardless. The publication can be read in the latest issue of Nature or online here: Access : Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions : Nature

I personally believe that faith is different from science, and those who believe can certainly point to their Creator as the ultimate cause for all this. This is certainly no 'smoking gun' against any religious belief, and hopefully will not be taken as an attack against those who are devout.

 

[Agnapostate]

Considering that many of those who believe in intelligent design or creationism still attack the Miller-Urey experiment, they apparently don't share that sentiment.

 

[Harshaw]

They may not share the sentiment, but it doesn't make the sentiment invalid.

 

[hazlnut]

Darn, I had just finished my paper entitled: The Chegg: Origins and Answers.










:2wave:**Chicken or the Egg**:2wave:

 

[American]

But DNA is too sophisticated to have popped up in an instant, and one avenue of thought says its single-stranded cousin, ribonucleic acid, or RNA, came first.

But I thought Darwin determined.....I thought it was all evolution.

 

[First Thought]

But I thought Darwin determined.....I thought it was all evolution.

Evolution does not deal with how life began. It deals with how it evolves.

 

[American]

So who knows when things started evolving? Hmmm?

 

[First Thought]

So who knows when things started evolving? Hmmm?

Evolutionary biologists... :coffeepap

 

[DarkWizard12]

So, wait, did the scientists actually find out how life MAY have begun, with an experiment and all, or is this just speculation? I don't see any sort of definite answer that life, at least COULD have, begun with RNA first.

 

[American]

Evolutionary biologists... :coffeepap

So that's not what these British scientists are?

 

[Kandahar]

Wow, the troglodytes are out in full force today, attacking even the POSSIBILITY that scientists may have discovered something. :roll:

 

[American]

Wow, the troglodytes are out in full force today, attacking even the POSSIBILITY that scientists may have discovered something. :roll:

Those ****ers couldn't discover their dicks with a map.

 

[Ethereal]

But I thought Darwin determined.....I thought it was all evolution.

What point are you trying to make?

 

[First Thought]

Those ****ers could discover their dicks with a map.

Grammar fail makes your attempt at an insult backfire.

 

[American]

Grammar fail makes your attempt at an insult backfire.

Thanks. :mrgreen:

 

[Black Dog]

Thanks. :mrgreen:

What does evolution have to do with abiogenesis?

Why are you angry scientists may have come up with a theory that can help explain how life may have begun? It has little to do with creation as God may have put exactly what they say in motion. They are also not touting it as any kind of fact, just a hypothesis. So I don't understand the hostility for an honestly exciting theory.

 

[Kernel Sanders]

But I thought Darwin determined.....I thought it was all evolution.

Abiogenesis is a completely separate theory from evolution.

And btw, you should read the whole sentence

But DNA is too sophisticated to have popped up in an instant, and one avenue of thought says its single-stranded cousin, ribonucleic acid, or RNA, came first.

DNA came from RNA, which came from simpler organic molecules, which came from simpler inorganic molecules, which are comprised of heavy elements, which form from hydrogen and helium in stars, which did pop up in an instant when the universe cooled down after the Big Bang sufficiently for subatomic particles, and later atoms to form

Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components in conditions that are plausible for early earth. Now they have

 

[Black Dog]

Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components. Now they have, in conditions that are plausible for early earth.

Could you point out where they said this was done. As far as I could tell it said they think it is possible.

I think they said it was plausible, not that they did it. Am I wrong?

 

[DarkWizard12]

This is crazy.

HAVE they solved how life begun, or not? How plausible is this theory? How sure are they that this is it?

 

[Kernel Sanders]

So, wait, did the scientists actually find out how life MAY have begun, with an experiment and all, or is this just speculation? I don't see any sort of definite answer that life, at least COULD have, begun with RNA first.

I suggest you read the Ars Technica article about this topic

Source [Ars Technica | Origin of life: building an RNA world from simple chemicals]

Studying the origin of life is a real challenge. Any actual evidence of the specific chemicals involved has long since been destroyed, leaving researchers with a big gap to bridge between the chemistry of the early earth and the molecules that appear to be fundamental to life itself. Recent years have seen a number of discoveries about DNA's close chemical relative, RNA, that suggest it played a key role in early protolife, leading to a proposal that life started out in an RNA world. One of the problems with this concept, however, was the fact that chemists hadn't come up with a way to synthesize the basic building blocks of RNA using the chemicals that were likely to be present in the early earth. Now, by taking a systems chemistry approach, a team of researchers at the University of Manchester have neatly cleared that hurdle.

On the biology side of things, support for an RNA world has built steadily in the last couple of decades, as discoveries have shown that RNA, in addition to carrying genetic information, can catalyze a variety of chemical reactions and undergo a form of chemical evolution when placed under a selective pressure. Remnants of the RNA world also appear to be central to modern life. Key molecules such as ATP and NADH are derivatives of RNA components, and RNA appears to catalyze a key step in the production of proteins.

But, so far, chemistry had come up a bit short. An RNA molecule is basically a polymer of individual units comprised of a ring-shaped base molecule, a sugar, and a phosphate. Chemists had figured out different ways that simple organic chemicals that were likely to be present in the early earth could form the base and sugar (phosphates are abundant). But, so far, they'd failed to chemically link them together in a functional unit.

That's the background of the recent study. There are infinitely many ways in which DNA may have eventually come about, which are more or less likely to have happened in early Earth. RNA can be artificially generated relatively easily in a lab, but this doesn't explain how it happened naturally, because the conditions are optimized for production quality, production rate etc rather than for being a good model of a mud puddle. This study demonstrated that RNA can be generated under realistic conditions, which strengthens the argument that RNA likely arose from simpler organic molecules, and more complex DNA molecules arose from RNA molecules, which this team demonstrated could have arisen in nature.

 

[Hatuey]

So much for people being made from ribs and mud.

 

[Kernel Sanders]

Could you point out where they said this was done. As far as I could tell it said they think it is possible.

I think they said it was plausible, not that they did it. Am I wrong?

They performed the synthesis. The synthesis is not the important part, though, it's that they performed it in conditions that could plausibly have existed on early Earth, in a very simple process.

**EDIT**
I misspoke in my earlier post, I edited it for clarity

 

[Black Dog]

I suggest you read the Ars Technica article about this topic

Source [Ars Technica | Origin of life: building an RNA world from simple chemicals]



That's the background of the recent study. There are infinitely many ways in which DNA may have eventually come about, which are more or less likely to have happened in early Earth. RNA can be artificially generated relatively easily in a lab, but this doesn't explain how it happened naturally, because the conditions are optimized for production quality, production rate etc rather than for being a good model of a mud puddle. This study demonstrated that RNA can be generated under realistic conditions, which strengthens the argument that RNA likely arose from simpler organic molecules, and more complex DNA molecules arose from RNA molecules, which this team demonstrated could have arisen in nature.

So I was correct in that they have not done this in a laboratory.

"But, so far, chemistry had come up a bit short. An RNA molecule is basically a polymer of individual units comprised of a ring-shaped base molecule, a sugar, and a phosphate. Chemists had figured out different ways that simple organic chemicals that were likely to be present in the early earth could form the base and sugar (phosphates are abundant). But, so far, they'd failed to chemically link them together in a functional unit."

OK I thought I read it correctly and your statement was just a tad off. It is plausible, but not more than a hypothesis at this point.

PS I agree with you for the most part. Just thought this comment "Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components. Now they have, in conditions that are plausible for early earth." was exaggerated a Little. Either that or I was mistaken in my reading.

 

[Kernel Sanders]

So I was correct in that they have not done this in a laboratory.

"But, so far, chemistry had come up a bit short. An RNA molecule is basically a polymer of individual units comprised of a ring-shaped base molecule, a sugar, and a phosphate. Chemists had figured out different ways that simple organic chemicals that were likely to be present in the early earth could form the base and sugar (phosphates are abundant). But, so far, they'd failed to chemically link them together in a functional unit."

OK I thought I read it correctly and your statement was just a tad off. It is plausible, but not more than a hypothesis at this point.

That last sentence reads, "But, so far, [they had] failed to chemically link them together in a functional unit." In this study, they succeeded.

To get there, the researchers took the simple organic chemicals that had been used to make a sugar and base in separate reactions: cyanamide, cyanoacetylene, glycolaldehyde, and glyceraldehyde. They then used a systems chemistry approach, exploring all the reactions that the chemicals could undergo. They came up with a simple, four-step synthesis that went through the three-ringed intermediate molecule. The key question was whether any of the reactions would actually take place under realistic conditions.

Building up a two-ringed intermediate had already been described in the literature, but the reaction only ran under very basic conditions, which would have destroyed one of the other reaction compounds. It turned out that adding phosphate at this step allowed it to catalyze the reaction at neutral pH, providing an 80 percent yield of a two-ringed chemical. The next step, a reaction with cyanoacetylene to form the final intermediate, would typically turn the reaction solution acidic, altering the products. Instead, the phosphate buffered the solution, keeping it near a neutral pH and fostering the production of the three-ringed compound. The phosphate also reacted with a reaction byproduct, ensuring that a reverse-reaction couldn't take place.

Finally, with a little bit of heat, the phosphate would react with the three ringed structure, forming a mature RNA base, and linking the phosphate in a reactive state that's suitable for polymerization into an RNA molecule. Although this is specific for the cytosine base, exposing it to UV converted some of it to uridine, the other base of this sort.

PS I agree with you for the most part. Just thought this comment "Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components. Now they have, in conditions that are plausible for early earth." was exaggerated a Little. Either that or I was mistaken in my reading.

Indeed, that was a misstatement. It should have read (and now does) "Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components in conditions that are plausible for early earth. Now they have"

 

[Black Dog]

That last sentence reads, "But, so far, [they had] failed to chemically link them together in a functional unit." In this study, they succeeded.

Indeed, that was a misstatement. It should have read (and now does) "Prior to this study, researchers had been unable to get RNA to self-organize from simpler components in conditions that are plausible for early earth. Now they have"

Ahhh OK, we were both off. Cool.

Pretty exciting times!

Thanks