[HN Gopher] Scientists identify substance that may have sparked ...
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Scientists identify substance that may have sparked life on earth
Author : taubek
Score : 107 points
Date : 2023-03-14 11:37 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rutgers.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rutgers.edu)
| RHSman2 wrote:
| Beer
| Octokiddie wrote:
| > Based on laboratory studies, Rutgers scientists say one of the
| most likely chemical candidates that kickstarted life was a
| simple peptide with two nickel atoms they are calling
| "Nickelback," not because it has anything to do with the Canadian
| rock band, but because its backbone nitrogen atoms bond two
| critical nickel atoms. A peptide is a constituent of a protein
| made up of a few elemental building blocks known as amino acids.
|
| Very doubtful this has anything to do with origins of life.
|
| The complex catalyzes the production of dihydrogen from hydrogen
| cation. It's a cool reaction, but to say this may have "sparked
| life on earth" is way off.
|
| Small peptide catalysts like this one have been known for some
| time and can even be designed for a wide range of reactions. A
| Nobel prize was awarded for this very field a few years back.
| weard_beard wrote:
| Look at this graph!
|
| It shows how life evolved from Nickelback.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Turns out this isn't wrong... "After sequences
| of experiments, researchers concluded the best candidate was
| Nickelback. The peptide is made of 13 amino acids and binds two
| nickel ions. Nickel, they reasoned, was an abundant
| metal in early oceans. When bound to the peptide, the nickel
| atoms become potent catalysts, attracting additional protons
| and electrons and producing hydrogen gas. Hydrogen, the
| researchers reasoned, was also more abundant on early Earth and
| would have been a critical source of energy to power
| metabolism."
| excalibur wrote:
| Given that it focuses on the precursors for life, one could
| implore people to look at this proto-graph
| doodpants wrote:
| It shows how the hell we wound up like this.
| tekla wrote:
| [flagged]
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Proofs for and against hold no sway, because Faith is beyond
| needing a proof. Why arguing with those with faith based on
| proofs go no where.
| toss1 wrote:
| Seems that lack of proof is a core axiom.
|
| If a God provided proof of it's existence as a God, then
| worship or regarding the God as a God would not be an act
| of free will; no leap of faith would be required.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The religious would say theirs proof everywhere. You just
| fundamentally have a different worldview so there's no
| point in the debate.
| teawrecks wrote:
| There's proof everywhere that this world is just an
| incredibly detailed simulation. Even if you inspect the
| tiniest grain of sand, the simulation is such high
| resolution that you simply can't tell it apart from a
| real world. Just goes to show how perfect the sim is.
| Praise the sim, blessed be its circuits.
| sideshowb wrote:
| ...drinks alien liquid, jumps into waterfall
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| Vodka ?
| alexpotato wrote:
| > they are calling "Nickelback," not because it has anything to
| do with the Canadian rock band
|
| Being a Rutgers grad, this 100% sounds like a troll that would
| come out of a New Jersey based institution of higher learning.
| hipsterstal1n wrote:
| As a fellow Rutgers alumni, I love the trolling effort but am
| disappointed it wasn't something like "Pork Roll", Danny
| DeVito, or "Bon Jovi" so we could have sentences like "Only
| after Bon Jovi could life as we know it develop on Earth".
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| My favorite along those lines is the Cox-Zucker machine:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%E2%80%93Zucker_machine
| redconfetti wrote:
| epic
| whalesalad wrote:
| Meanwhile, physicists in Tallahassee, Florida have identified
| the Creed particle, which has little electromagnetic arms wide
| open.
| dsnr wrote:
| Another one, the MTHFR gene:
|
| https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/gene/mthfr/
| legrande wrote:
| > We believe the change was sparked by a few small precursor
| proteins that performed key steps in an ancient metabolic
| reaction
|
| Anyone believe the Panspermia[0] theory?
|
| > Panspermia proposes that organisms such as bacteria, complete
| with their DNA, could be transported by means such as comets
| through space to planets including Earth.
|
| For all we know there could have been an Earth-like planet that
| had life in the early solar system, and they got destroyed by
| large impacts, and some of that life rained down on Earth (in a
| simple form).
|
| There is also the theory that life propagated from distant star
| systems that harbored life (or still do) and had enough time to
| spread to Earth.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Isn't Panspermia kind of irrelevant to answer the actual
| question of how life started? It's just passing the buck on to
| another planet.
|
| The important part to the question is not about where, but how.
| rcme wrote:
| > For all we know there could have been an Earth-like planet
| that had life in the early solar system
|
| "For all we know" isn't that convincing of an argument given
| that we know so little about life's origin.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| "For all we know" is an expression that conveys a lack of
| knowledge/certainty, so they're using the phrase in a way
| that makes perfect sense.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| That doesn't really change the question if how life originated
| though, does it? It only proposes another place of origin, not
| a method of origin.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Yes indeed. But maybe the conditions for life to form are so
| exotic, that they are not to be found on earth?
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Why would we believe that, though? Why bother with the
| extra layer of indirection, through an environment we know
| even less about?
|
| Then there's the fact that life appeared on earth almost as
| soon as it was possible for it to exist. Either it was easy
| and formed really quickly on Earth, or space is/was so full
| of it that earth got contaminated almost immediately...
| which still implies life is common and easy. Panspermia
| just doesn't help.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Panspermia is a great idea and we should be initiating it by
| sending the hardiest DNA organisms everywhere!
| ulizzle wrote:
| Panspermia isn't very good against the Fermi paradox. It makes
| life (and the signs of it) too abundant.
| konfusinomicon wrote:
| so what kind of digested fat sandwich was it found in?
| gilleain wrote:
| The material section of the paper
| (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq1990) links to
| this github repo for some of the software used :
| https://github.com/protCAD/protCAD
|
| The models also are available at the 'Model archive' - eg
| https://modelarchive.org/doi/10.5452/ma-iyjyy
| tabtab wrote:
| [flagged]
| eql5 wrote:
| The modern translation of "God" is called "Time" -- makes
| everything otherwise impossible -- possible!!
| tabtab wrote:
| Per an Einsteinian viewpoint, they could be the same thing.
| Einstein basically labeled the creating force "God" without
| characterizing it as any specific person, place, force, or
| thing(s); saying, "I don't really know yet what the creating
| force is; that's what science is all about."
| eql5 wrote:
| Ok, so God is defined as "transcendent", but Time (in
| substitution of God) can't be transcendent, otherwise it
| could not possibly be subject to science...
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