Liquid Crystal Phases of DNA, Beginning of Life?

An anonymous reader writes "A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth. CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark said the team found that surprisingly short segments of DNA, life's molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that "self-orient" parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution. Life is widely believed to have emerged as segments of DNA- or RNA-like molecules in a prebiotic "soup" solution of ancient organic molecules.

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[PatrickHagerty]

Humans are Borg!

Re:God of the Gaps

[arminw]

....that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved........

The problem with establishing a series of steps is that the first step has to be put somewhere. Nobody KNOWS where that first step needs to go. We can believe where it might have been, but once you start to believe, who is to say one belief is more true than any other?

The Bible tells us the first step began with God because God is the eternally self existent One. Modern science cannot really place the first step. Logic tells us the Universe either created itself, which is absurd, or it was caused by a cause outside of itself or it always existed. Since observed data shows that it has not always existed. By process of elimination we come to an outside, independent cause. The writers of the Bible claim they were personally told by God, that He is that one who made everything from nothing. This does fit within the framework of logic. Of course anyone can feel free to believe or reject the testimony of any witness.