Discussion:
OT: Life from a drop of rain, New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
(too old to reply)
Jan Panteltje
2024-08-22 04:33:34 UTC
Permalink
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
Date:
August 21, 2024
Source:
University of Chicago
Summary:
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.

There you go, simplicity!
boB
2024-08-22 22:08:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
I thought everybody knew this ?
john larkin
2024-08-22 22:40:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
It's easy to form a blob with some goo inside. Like mayonaise.

The hard part is the DNA and all its tousands of supporting
structures.
Martin Brown
2024-08-23 09:59:17 UTC
Permalink
Post by john larkin
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
It's easy to form a blob with some goo inside. Like mayonaise.
One conjecture is that it takes a planet with a decent sized moon so
that tide range is variable to have rock pools that concentrate the
chemistry to a point where it works. We will know better once Mars or
Europa has been properly explored. Finding life independently evolved
somewhere else would go a long way to answering these questions.
Post by john larkin
The hard part is the DNA and all its tousands of supporting
structures.
That is why self replicating autocatalytic peptides and RNA probably
came first. They are much less stable and mutate faster. But RNA is good
enough that plenty of viruses and viroids (plant pathogens) still use it
today. They are the last remnants of earlier pre-DNA life on Earth.

DNA with its double helix preserves information much more reliably in
complex organisms, but that came much later when cells started to have a
nucleus and organelles inside. Primitive life had neither just a single
chromosome (and bacteria today are descendents of those archaea).
--
Martin Brown
john larkin
2024-08-23 18:03:10 UTC
Permalink
On Fri, 23 Aug 2024 10:59:17 +0100, Martin Brown
Post by Martin Brown
Post by john larkin
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
It's easy to form a blob with some goo inside. Like mayonaise.
One conjecture is that it takes a planet with a decent sized moon so
that tide range is variable to have rock pools that concentrate the
chemistry to a point where it works. We will know better once Mars or
Europa has been properly explored. Finding life independently evolved
somewhere else would go a long way to answering these questions.
Post by john larkin
The hard part is the DNA and all its tousands of supporting
structures.
That is why self replicating autocatalytic peptides and RNA probably
came first. They are much less stable and mutate faster. But RNA is good
enough that plenty of viruses and viroids (plant pathogens) still use it
today. They are the last remnants of earlier pre-DNA life on Earth.
Or they are parasites that evolved after DNA life.
Post by Martin Brown
DNA with its double helix preserves information much more reliably in
complex organisms, but that came much later when cells started to have a
nucleus and organelles inside. Primitive life had neither just a single
chromosome (and bacteria today are descendents of those archaea).
Proponents of RNA World should design an RNA based reproducing,
evolving life form.
Bill Sloman
2024-08-24 06:55:15 UTC
Permalink
Post by john larkin
On Fri, 23 Aug 2024 10:59:17 +0100, Martin Brown
Post by Martin Brown
Post by john larkin
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
It's easy to form a blob with some goo inside. Like mayonaise.
One conjecture is that it takes a planet with a decent sized moon so
that tide range is variable to have rock pools that concentrate the
chemistry to a point where it works. We will know better once Mars or
Europa has been properly explored. Finding life independently evolved
somewhere else would go a long way to answering these questions.
Post by john larkin
The hard part is the DNA and all its tousands of supporting
structures.
That is why self replicating autocatalytic peptides and RNA probably
came first. They are much less stable and mutate faster. But RNA is good
enough that plenty of viruses and viroids (plant pathogens) still use it
today. They are the last remnants of earlier pre-DNA life on Earth.
Or they are parasites that evolved after DNA life.
From what?
Post by john larkin
Post by Martin Brown
DNA with its double helix preserves information much more reliably in
complex organisms, but that came much later when cells started to have a
nucleus and organelles inside. Primitive life had neither just a single
chromosome (and bacteria today are descendants of those archaea).
Proponents of RNA World should design an RNA based reproducing,
evolving life form.
They don't have to. Covid-19 is a perfectly adequate example. It does
depend on us for reproduction, but you failed to exclude that mode of
reproduction.

You probably want a free-living RNA-based life-form that can get its
energy and its and its constituents from a non-living environment, which
is a much bigger ask, in part because we don't know all that much about
the environment prevailing before life had got its first toe-hold.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Bill Sloman
2024-08-23 13:48:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by john larkin
Post by Jan Panteltje
Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
A Nobel-winning biologist, two engineering schools, and a vial of Houston rainwater
cast new light on the origin of life on Earth
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/08/240821150020.htm
August 21, 2024
University of Chicago
New research shows that rainwater could have helped create a meshy wall around protocells 3.8 billion years ago, a critical step in the transition from tiny beads of RNA to every bacterium, plant, animal, and human that ever lived.
There you go, simplicity!
It's easy to form a blob with some goo inside. Like mayonaise.
The hard part is the DNA and all its thousands of supporting
structures.
The general impression is that the first life was RNA-based, rather than
DNA-based, and that it wasn't all that complicated. DNA and the
"thousands of supporting structures" came later. We've got some 20,000
genes that code for specific proteins, and they get tweaked to produce
about 100,000 different proteins. First life was presumably quite a lot
simpler.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Loading...