On a sunny day (Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:13:50 +0000) it happened Martin Brown
Post by Martin BrownPost by Jan PanteltjeNatural recycling at the origin of life
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240322145524.htm
Ludwig-Maximilians-UniversitÀt MÌnchen
How was complex life able to develop on the inhospitable early Earth?
At the beginning there must have been ribonucleic acid (RNA) to carry the first genetic information.
To build up complexity in their sequences, these biomolecules need to release water.
On the early Earth, which was largely covered in seawater, that was not so easy to do.
So, simple :-)
Given how quickly a misfolded protein managed to propagate as BSE when
they scrimped on the cooking for cannibalistic cattle feed I suspect
that self replicating RNA, proteins and peptides are fairly common.
However, life might still need a fair bit of luck to get started ab
initio from entirely inorganic but common chemicals in molecular clouds.
Na, I think it is a natural process, happening all over the universe here conditions allow..
Post by Martin BrownOne unusual feature of the Earth-Moon system is that it had large and
variable tides with a monthly cycle (Moon orbited us closer and faster
in the distant past). This has the effect of making rock pools that
isolate from bulk seawater for variable lengths of time up to half a
month so that the liquid can concentrate (and get warm in the sun).
Post by Jan PanteltjeThen us, then chips, AI, what's next?
Fermi's Paradox suggests we are amongst the first in our galaxy to get
this far. Otherwise robotic alien probes would be everywhere by now.
There are so many stars and galaxies, our 'window of time' where we can even do radio transmissions and sent something into space
versus there 'window of time' + travel time for spacecraft would need to overlap so the things would arrive here now and we can detect them..
Hard to detect too, very small.
And may not look alike anything _we_ put into space.
Post by Martin BrownIncidentally we may be able to detect industrialised civilisations at a
truly great distance if they follow the same path as we did.
Observing CFC's in the high atmosphere can pretty much only come from a
civilisation that has mastered organofluorine chemistry. Fluorine is
just too reactive and calcium fluoride so incredibly insoluble that it
is all scavenged into an inert form very quickly even if some occurs in
vulcanism. You have to separate it electrolytically from a molten salt
eutectic mix (scary stuff it is too).
Absolutely, was some references to that on one of the sci sites I read every day..
Also there are great programs on German channels on Astra1 satellite that go into it,
show equipment, videos and shots taken by various spacecraft and professors talking about what they found.
https://www.tvdirekt.de/tv-programm-auf-einen-blick/tv-programm-online.html?hours=4&typeID=-1&typeName=free
for if you speak German
short one was today
https://www.tvdirekt.de/tv-programm/sendungsdetails/191122146/leschs-kosmos.html
last week about the planets, their satellites and all the probes that were sent there.
some of those programs last for hours,
on zdf.info on astra1 satellite
https://www.wunschliste.de/serie/die-planeten-2019
And of course there is NASA TV on Hotbird 13 East satellite
All very interesting.
We are _not_ the center of everything... just an other chemical reaction in a vast space with a few things called neurons
that perhaps think we can grasp everything ;-)
Some thing about quantum gravity today:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/03/240326103858.htm
I go for Le Sage complex particles also carrying EM radiation.