Radical new view of the origin of life

[kan...@aol.com]

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2526959-how-a-radical-new-view-of-life-could-reveal-its-origin-and-aliens/

Hey, it's not political. An interesting new set of notions of how life may have begun. 

If you want the Cliff Notes, here they are. 

Turns out that amino acids and proteins are a low entropy form of organic molecules. Stated simply, they can arise if the environment has the building blocks available. They will tend to self propagate. 

Turns out that nuclei acids (DNA/RNA) also tend to self assemble for the same reason. 

They may BOTH have arisen through simple chemistry, separately. Once the found each other..................presto. 

It suggests that life, AS WE KNOW IT, may be a simple chemical process that could occur in many places in ways not at all that mysterious. 

[GMoney]

Cool.

So...where'd those amino acids and proteins come from in the first place? 

[Brian Kegerreis]

Lol reminds me of a story I once heard

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[kan...@aol.com]

So G, the article suggests that amino acids and nucleotides are low entropy molecules. So when you take the raw materials of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen and "cook" them, you get low entropy molecules, Same as when you burn wood; you get low entropy molecules such as CO and CO2. 

Turns out that this can be easily replicated. Take a "soup" of the building blocks and heat; presto, you get all kinds of stuff,, some of which are aa's and nucleotides. Kinda a surprise. And apparently these two items have some mysterious affinity for one another. Presto, you have replicating amino acids. And the rest is history. 

The cool thing about this research is that it makes the creation of life somewhat "ordinary". Doesn't require aliens or the delivery of life from some far off place by way of comets, etc. And in demonstrating this, it also suggest that the recipe for life could/should be found all over the place. And also that it may likely have DNA as part of its structure. All you need is water, stir, wait a billion years and ta-da. 

There is water on some of Saturn's moon's, buried under a frozen surface. Might be a place to look. 

So where did this happen on earth? Perhaps in the deep sea geothermal vents, where life flourishes without light, or photosynthesis. Just raw materiel and heat. 

[Brian Kegerreis]

Where did the water come from?

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[kan...@aol.com]

Water is one of the lowest entropy substances known. How do we know that? Think Hindenburg. Mix hydrogen and oxygen, add a VERY small spark and presto, water. Plus lots of energy. I'm not going to give a lecture on quantum physics. You could start to ask where every atom came from. They get cooked in the nuclear cauldron of suns. 

But I know where you're going; I recognize a rabbit hole when I see one. The next question is "Where did the hydrogen come from?"