Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Before the scientific revolution of the last four centuries, such arguments were commonplace and widely accepted, presumably because the "gaps" were large and showing no signs of shrinking. A lightning bolt crashes down, the peasants working in the field cross themselves... "

Thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life

K. Michaelian
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Cto. de la Investigación Científica, Cuidad Universitaria, C.P. 04510, Mexico

Received: 09 Feb 2010 – Published in Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss.: 04 Mar 2010
Revised: 27 Jul 2010 – Accepted: 24 Feb 2011 – Published: 11 Mar 2011
Abstract. Understanding the thermodynamic function of life may shed light on its origin. Life, as are all irreversible processes, is contingent on entropy production. Entropy production is a measure of the rate of the tendency of Nature to explore available microstates. The most important irreversible process generating entropy in the biosphere and, thus, facilitating this exploration, is the absorption and transformation of sunlight into heat. Here we hypothesize that life began, and persists today, as a catalyst for the absorption and dissipation of sunlight on the surface of Archean seas. The resulting heat could then be efficiently harvested by other irreversible processes such as the water cycle, hurricanes, and ocean and wind currents. RNA and DNA are the most efficient of all known molecules for absorbing the intense ultraviolet light that penetrated the dense early atmosphere and are remarkably rapid in transforming this light into heat in the presence of liquid water. From this perspective, the origin and evolution of life, inseparable from water and the water cycle, can be understood as resulting from the natural thermodynamic imperative of increasing the entropy production of the Earth in its interaction with its solar environment. A mechanism is proposed for the reproduction of RNA and DNA without the need for enzymes, promoted instead through UV light dissipation and diurnal temperature cycling of the Archean sea-surface.

Citation: Michaelian, K.: Thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2, 37-51, doi:10.5194/esd-2-37-2011, 2011.

Quhog and Frank, a mind concieved by Spielberg

The gaps that your god might be hiding in will most likely continue to shrink.

New Evidence on the Origins of Life on Earth
June 3, 2015

Two newly published studies reveal evidence for how the genetic code developed in two distinct stages to help primordial chemicals evolve into cells.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – In the beginning, there were simple chemicals. And they produced amino acids that eventually became the proteins necessary to create single cells. And the single cells became plants and animals. Recent research is revealing how the primordial soup created the amino acid building blocks, and there is widespread scientific consensus on the evolution from the first cell into plants and animals. But it’s still a mystery how the building blocks were first assembled into the proteins that formed the machinery of all cells. Now, two long-time University of North Carolina scientists – Richard Wolfenden, PhD, and Charles Carter, PhD – have shed new light on the transition from building blocks into life some 4 billion years ago.

Their findings, published in companion papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fly in the face of the problematic “RNA world” theory, which posits that RNA – the molecule that today plays roles in coding, regulating, and expressing genes – elevated itself from the primordial soup of amino acids and cosmic chemicals to give rise first to short proteins called peptides and then to single-celled organisms.

Wolfenden and Carter argue that RNA did not work alone; in fact, it was no more likely that RNA catalyzed peptide formation than it was for peptides to catalyze RNA formation.

“Our work shows that the close linkage between the physical properties of amino acids, the genetic code, and protein folding was likely essential from the beginning, long before large, sophisticated molecules arrived on the scene,” said Carter, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the UNC School of Medicine. “This close interaction was likely the key factor in the evolution from building blocks to organisms.”

The finding adds a new layer to the story of how life evolved billions of years ago.

Its name was LUCA

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Source: University of North Carolina

The new science of the origins of life
Thursday 2 April 2015 2:21PM

Primordial soup was edible: abiotically produced Miller-Urey mixture supports bacterial growth
Xueshu Xie, Daniel Backman, Albert T. Lebedev, Viatcheslav B. Artaev, Liying Jiang, Leopold L. Ilag & Roman A. Zubarev
Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 14338 (2015)
doi:10.1038/srep14338
Download Citation
Bacteria | Mass spectrometry | Chemical origin of life
Received:
11 March 2015
Accepted:
25 August 2015
Published online:
28 September 2015

A new model for the origin of life - Bruce Damer and Dave Deamer (SETITalks)
SETI Institute

Published on Jan 20, 2015
Full Title: A new model for the origin of life: Coupled phases and combinatorial selection in fluctuating hydrothermal pools

Chemists claim to have solved riddle of how life began on Earth

March 18, 2015 by Bob Yirka

Phys.org)—A team of chemists working at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, at Cambridge in the UK believes they have solved the mystery of how it was possible for life to begin on Earth over four billion years ago. In their paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry, the team describes how they were able to map reactions that produced two and three-carbon sugars, amino acids, ribonucleotides and glycerol—the material necessary for metabolism and for creating the building blocks of proteins and ribonucleic acid molecules and also for allowing for the creation of lipids that form cell membranes.
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