robert karl stonjek

ORIGIN OF LIFE: IN SEARCH OF THE SIMPLEST CELL

The following points are made by Eörs Szathmary (Nature 2005 433:469):

1) In investigating the origin of life and the simplest possible life forms,
one needs to enquire about the composition and working of a minimal cell
that has some form of metabolism, genetic replication from a template, and
boundary (membrane) production.

2) Identifying the necessary and sufficient features of life has a long
tradition in theoretical biology. But living systems are products of
evolution, and an answer in very general terms, even if possible, is likely
to remain purely phenomenological. Going deeper into mechanisms means having
to account for the organization of various processes, and such organization
has been realized in several different ways by evolution. Eukaryotic cells
(such as those from which we are made) are much more complicated than
prokaryotes (such as bacteria), and eukaryotes harbor organelles that were
once free-living bacteria. A further complication is that multicellular
organisms consist of building blocks -- cells -- that are also alive. So
aiming for a general model of all kinds of living beings would be fruitless;
instead, such models have to be tied to particular levels of biological
organization.

Full Text at Science Week
http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw050325-1.htm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

perplexed in peoria

Further down in the referenced web page, I found some comments by S****
Rasmussen that were more interesting than Szathmary's. That led me to
a long, but interesting, paper by Rasmussen et. al. here:

http://www.ees.lanl.gov/EES5/staff/s****/papers/269-316.pdf

While this paper discusses chemical A-life, and does not necessarily
tell us anything about the historical origin of life on earth, it does
contain some useful thermodynamic ****ysis of membrane-related dynamic
processes. I is worth glancing at if you are interested in my series
of OOL postings or in lipid-oriented approaches to OOL in general.

First time I have ever recommended a paper originating in Los Alamos!
Perhaps the Stuart Kauffman effect (suppressing the critical intelligence
of anything that comes in contact with him) is not operating in this case.

tom hendricks

No. Please stop here. As I said in the other post about asking the
wrong
question - this is is. It's not 'the composition and working' that you
should
be investigating - its what force pushed these chemicals into doing
anything.

There are two choices, a. the sun heat cycle did it, b. a magic wand.

Let's look at the magic wand scenario first. I call it "Five taps of
the chemical
magical wand" It usually takes at leats 5 taps but, sore arm sceanrios
are very common
in the origin.

Here's the basic taps even to get started:
poof chemicals magically appear at the same place and same time,
poof chemicals want to eat,
poof chemicals want to replicate,
poof they want to get to life and live (not like low life rocks!),
poof they want to come together in the same spot on earth
at the exact same time,
poof they want to work together,
poof they find cells for rent,
poof they need a magic cloak ....
Why the magic cloak - it protects them so that they can replicate, and
metabolize
for thousand to a million years without being once upset by the
environment they
are in. Only after that time can the cloak be removed and poof they are
safe and
adapted to the environment.

Tom's golden rule:
you have to have a sun heat cycle to have any aspect of the origin
happen.
If you don't have a sun heat cycle, the origin can't happen. (snipped)