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"Immortal Molecule" Evolves — How Close To Synthetic Life?
An anonymous reader writes with word of ongoing work at Scripps Research Institute: "Can life arise from nothing but a chaotic assortment of basic molecules? The answer is a lot closer following a series of ingenious experiments that have shown evolution at work in non-living molecules."
"evolution at work in non-living molecules."
:)
molecules can live?
ok just making sure
Evolution is a process, it applies equally well to many substrates. Organic molecules are one of the classes and many other phenomena can be described in evolutionary terms. If you go to an extreme you can say the all structures in our Universe are evolved with the loosest definition of Evolution as: "Change over time."
Shh.
I'd say as long as they don't colour them grey, we should be safe. If they are grey, look out!
Working with the ribosome seems like as good an idea as any, but the research seems so restricted. The nutrient rich medium does run out, but they are not selecting for long term viability, they are only selecting for speed of replication.
Problems that this does not address are: how did metabolisms develop, and where did membranes come from? It seems that a membrane bound replicating body of this sort would fit all the requirements of rudimentary life.
biologists discover that thermodynamics and kinetics influence the outcomes of chemical reactions.
First you have:
1) Basic molecules that replicate themselves
2) Basic molecules that do not replicate
In the long run, guess what you have more...
Next step:
1) Basic molecules that replicate themselves
2) A tiny bit more complex molecules that are better in replicating themselves (or last longer in the environment)
In the long run, guess what you have more... repeat ad infinitum.
What are the chanses of this thing growing and growing and......ohh dear my sink is clogged
What biologists tend to pidgeon-hole as "life" is a sub-set of the wider computational process' in our Universe. How do we get from obviously non-living molecules up to these wonderful structures we call people who morally appreciate beauty? Well, it's all compuation and the devil is in the details: see Figure 1 of The Computational Beauty of Nature. The book both begins and ends with that figure - to reinforce the relationships in the deepest depths of our Universe. The philosophy when scaled up to our noble and good level of reality works smoothly the entire way. Recognition that the Universe, Biology, and Evolution are all Computational is just taking time to work it's way through the teaching material.
Shh.
It can't be true since God didn't make it. Obviously :)
thegodmovie.com - watch it
They have nice things there... replication, making not perfect copies, but what they dont have is death. And death is a critical for evolving... without it, you will consume all consummable resources, and when that happens no more copies will be possible. At least until some molecule turns into predator and eats those supposed "immortal" molecules.
The "Alan Hills" Mars meteorite has triggered interest in a type of bacteria temporarily coined "nanobacteria". The alleged bacterial fossils in the meteorite have been criticized as too small to be bacteria.
Since then the search for earthly equivalents has taken off. Some of the candidates appear to be either non-living, or on the borderline, including curious objects found in human blood.
And it tickles the question of how small a bacterium can get and still be "alive". It's too new of a field to make any definitive conclusions, but does show the value of exploring outer space. It makes us ask questions and explore areas we might otherwise ignore.
(Although the meteorite did not come from a space mission, it's recognition as being from Mars is based on data from the two Viking landers of the 1970's.)
Table-ized A.I.
For those current in the field, this discovery is not surprising. Several people have created synthetic ribozymes already, most doing some trivial and superfluous task. It was only a matter of time until someone created a self-replicating ribozyme. Yet, they do serve as basic evidence that the RNA-world hypothesis may be correct.
However, a soup of replicating molecules is still a far cry from life, and, indeed, there are many more complicated features of life as we know it, even at the most basic level, for which there is no creation hypothesis. We know that membranes can self-assemble into micelles, and one key component of all life is a membrane layer to separate the living environment from the surroundings. However, if, by chance, a micelle happened to self-assemble around a ribozyme, how does the ribozyme continue to function, now that it has no ready source of diffusing ribonucleotides (the building block of RNA)?
Second, how did the first micelles replicate? Did they simply continue to grow as more membrane molecules spontaneously add to them until they broke apart into two? Perhaps life arose in some sort of thermally-cycling environment and the micelles broke apart at high temperture, releasing the contents, and then reformed again, with new randomized contents when the temperature cooled.
Third, how did we transition from RNA contents with lipid membranes into the vastly richer information of the amino acid world? Is there a reductionist "alphabet" for amino acids that may have served as the starting point, from which the extra amino acids were added slowly. Is our alphabet 'optimal' (virtually all life uses the same 20-acid alphabet, which minor variations of 1 or 2 in extreme organisms)? Or perhaps the alphabet only evolved once, and thus had no competition and could be completely far from optimal.
As you can see, there are a number of interesting questions to be explored. We have, however, gone from not knowing how the basic components of cells (proteins, DNA, lipids) functioned, to knowing that DNA encodes the 'heritable' information, to its structure, to the Miller-Urey experiment, and now on to knowing immense details about the complicated protein functional networks within cells, and between cells as well creating synthetic molecules that can evolve via natural selection, all in the span of just more than a century. It's going to be extremely fun to see what we know by the end of the 21st century. Right now we feel like we know all of the basics and just have to work on the hard stuff. I will bet dollars to donuts that we have a lot to learn, and, by 2100, several discoveries will have been made that future people will wonder how we ever thought we knew anything without.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
The older I get the more I wonder about the relationships in our Universe. Now, it may just be cognitive cob-webs but who is to actually say that God is not waiting for us beyond the last theorem? Physics is not complete yet so isn't it hubris to proclaim that there is no God without a complete understanding of where our Universe came from? I am finding it more difficult to remain an atheist to the point that I have become an igtheist as I have gained more life experience. Just because most of what the world pushes on you as the concept of "God" is complete crap does not mean that "God" does not exist. The definition is where the meat lies. Perhaps someday physics will be complete assuming the incompletness theorem doesn't prevent that and we will know for sure. Until then, don't be so cock-eyed and smug in your "logical" denial.
Shh.
I suppose that appearing motionless for days is a form of "homeostasis", "response to stimuli" includes overbearing corrections whenever trolling remarks appear on a screen, and we can always find some working definition of "growth", but "reproduction"? I think we're collectively struggling there..
"They're just molecules, so they do what they do until they run out of substrate. And this will go for ever it's an immortal molecule, if you like, he told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here in San Diego."
Later in the evening working alone, Dr DeSilva accidentally cut himself with an x-acto contaminated by his cultures. The RNA slowly overtook his own cellular composition, "blindly finding solutions that made them more successful". Ironically, he had unknowingly predicted his own end, "They do what they do until they run out of substrate". He (the self-replicating RNA by this time) was later to discover the best substrate was brainz...
And so the zombie apocalypse begins...
"The team then extracted a random subset, and put them in a new medium: ribozymes then competed with each other to consume as much of the medium as possible." Sounds like my ex-boyfriend & his beer buddies.
please evolve
Table-ized A.I.
It does not contradict the Bible at all. After all the evilution, they still remain the molecule kind.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I found this looking for more information. A good primer of what they are doing. Joyce Lab News 1
This RNA seems to be replicating 'until it runs out of substrate', but they've started off with something already quite complex. The real question is can base elements and naturally occurring molecules/compounds spontaneously create RNA? All this study says is that we can run a motor without a car body around it and with it's fuel line just hanging in a pool of petrol.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
not exactly evolution but a good attempt though ;)
welcome our new RNA based overlords
Since the scientists involved synthesized the original molecules through their manipulations, I don't see how this can be viewed as evidence of any sort of spontaneous evolution. Throw together the random ingredients that should have been in the primordial soup and let them cook. If they then start evolving, it will be something to write home about. Until then, it's just like a mechanic taking parts from a bunch of different cars, slapping them together, getting something that turns over, and then expressing surprise that a car was able to arise from all of the jumbled parts.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
"Recognition that the Universe, Biology, and Evolution are all Computational is just taking time to work it's way through the teaching material."
Thanks for the reading tip. Like many other people trained in computer science I also belive that combined with Darwinian ideas it will radically change our understanding of biology and ultimately ourselves.
To paraphrase how Douglas Adams put it for millenia science has been done by pulling things apart, but the first thing that happens when you pull a cat apart is you have a non-working cat, computers have given us the ability to do science by putting things together from the bottom up.
Despite what many people erroneously belive about computer models of things such as climate and the mammalian brain they have already demonstrated a level of sophistication that we could only dream of 30yrs ago.
BTW: My definition of life is; the process by which the universe achieves self awareness.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The difference between the claims of the author and the quotes by the scientists is quite remarkable. The scientists claimed they succeeded in creating a "self-replicating" molecule that could optimize it's response to different environments by passing 30 bits of information to the next generation. They specifically denied that they'd created "evolution" in the sense of evolving molecules of higher and higher complexity and more ingenious responses. This didn't stop the author of the story from making these claims however. And of course skeptics will be accused of being "creationists". Good experiment + bad press = scientism not science
OK, maybe it's a little silly of one to say they want an artificial simulation over a real-world experiment, but i think a Game of Life simulation would be killer based off this. But really, will we really be able to say we can understand this WITHOUT making a game of it? Simulating it artificially could only come from being able to predict the behaviors.
So, because it'd be cool, because it would test our understanding, because it would be educational, i wanna see a game produced!
As long as you have a team of intelligent, well-equipped, well-funded scientists working on it.
Take that all you people who cling to guns and religion!
cock-eyed smug believers
believers are bothered by cock-eyed smug atheists
myself, i'm just bothered by cock-eyed smug people
most believers, and atheists, just don't consider the realm of theology to be something to dwell that much on. they're lives are not simple, they are not stupid, they merely know a lesson apparently many don't know: humility on large questions
whatever is, or is not, out there, one thing for certain is: a little tact and subtlety is fucking appreciated from all of you, thanks
to me, one of the greatest questions in the spiritual realm of thought, the most pressing theological question ever devised is: "do i know when to shut the fuck up?"
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if yes, then you admit to something about this "life" concept is real
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes, with the following modified added to
"temporary cohesion equivalent to life"
As long as the cohesion (the maintenance of the mutual information)
consistently lasts longer, for some matter-energy pattern type, than you would expect given the thermodynamic regime which forms the environment of the matter-energy pattern By "thermodynamic regime, I mean the amounts of free energy that are around to do entropizing work on the matter-energy pattern.
Life = Excess sustained negentropy in a space-time region, compared to what random chance (without the pattern's self-sustaining structure and behaviour) would produce.
I believe you can actually measure that amount of excess sustained negentropy (i.e. excess sustained localized mutual information),
using a unit like bit seconds, or perhaps bit seconds / joule.
By the way, evolution's direction is to increase that quantity in a spacetime region, compared to the total amount of matter and energy present in the region.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Yes, with the following modifier added to
"temporary cohesion equivalent to life"
As long as the cohesion (the maintenance of the mutual information)
consistently lasts longer, for some matter-energy pattern type, than you would expect given the thermodynamic regime which forms the environment of the matter-energy pattern.
By "thermodynamic regime, I mean the amounts of free energy that are around to do entropizing work on the matter-energy pattern.
Life = Excess sustained negentropy in a space-time region, compared to what random chance (without the pattern's self-sustaining structure and behaviour) would produce.
I believe you can actually measure that amount of excess sustained negentropy (i.e. excess sustained localized mutual information),
using a unit like bit seconds, or perhaps bit seconds / joule.
By the way, evolution's direction is to increase that quantity in a spacetime region, compared to the total amount of matter and energy present in the region
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
what may be a better way to phrase the question is, can people with vested interests in seeing a desirable outcome from an experiment, create such a synthetic experiment that their desired outcomes are manifest. It's like some people are actually frightened of discovering the truth and hide behind contrived models. fear
That's impossible. The AC to which you answered is an incontrovertible proof of Intelligent Design.
They should have tried that for billion years, that would be more like real creation of life.
So my refrigerator is alive?
And "computational processes".
They are obviously trying to create a Horta before the timeline of Star Trek: The Original Series gets here.
Mark Edwards
You are getting the issue sort of backwards. You are asking for evidence of a negative--evidence that God does NOT exist, and since proving a negative is impossible (disregarding logical impossibilities, like square circles), it's no wonder that you're coming up short. The issue is whether or not there is any reason TO believe.
Have you found it more difficult to continue not believing in Zeus, Thor, Quetzalcoatl, etc? It's not in dispute that there are many things about the universe that we do not understand. I just don't see how "I don't know" maps to "God did it." Ignorance is not a theological argument.
Isn't that just as true of all the other gods? I'm an atheist because I see no reason to believe in God, not because I claim to have total knowledge of the universe and can definitively tell you that there is no God. Please stop acting as if atheists are the one making untenable knowledge-claims. Theism is the claim that God exists, and atheism is just skepticism towards that claim. The burden of evidence still rests on the theists, just as it always does for the person making the claim.
I understand the point you are trying to make, and I am myself an ignostic, but you miss an important point about igtheism which is that your argument is useless. You see, if "most of what the world pushes on you as the concept of "God" is complete crap" it DOES in fact mean "God" does not exist. The society makes the definition...logically denying God in this context makes perfect sense.
All your argument here says is that 'We came from somewhere or something...' and that you personally may be willing call that somewhere/thing 'God' no matter what that somewhere/thing is. Then you go on to call those who wouldn't dream of calling it 'God' "smug and cock-eyed" when they do so because it's going to be nothing like what everyone on this planet who has a definition claims a god is.
You're accusing someone of being arrogant for not believing in something which you then go on to say has no definition...this is foolish.
Now we have replicators. Where's SG1 when you need them?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Would that be happening all the time now, except other organisms eat the simple results before they get very advanced?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
No it's not, and that's consistent with my definition.
The definition does not state how the matter-energy pattern got there in the first place. Once it exists (e.g. the refrigerator), the question is, how long would we expect it to last (or what is the Mean Time Before Failure for 1000 of them.) The environment of the fridge (including parts of the fridge itself) will have processes like friction, oxidation, heating-cooling distortion etc going on. So the fridge will cease to perform its essential function after some MTBF, and will become an unrecognizable lump of rust after additional time. Whatever the MTBF is is the time we would expect the refrigerator pattern to stay instantiated (if orginally instantiated) in the thermodynamic regime.
Now if the refrigerator contained a refrigerator-building program, and housed a refrigerator building robot complete with a metal-mining/scavenging function etc. i.e. if it included an autonomous factory for making several copies of itself out of materials and energy found in its environment,
and if that process actually worked reliably generation after generation, then yes, I would argue it is mostly alive.
Now you may want to insist that the fridge-with-its-own-factory also needs a way whereby its factory-program can create incrementally different variants of the fridge, and thus test those varying copies against each other and the environment. Ok. Fine. Matter of definition. What that extra capability really does is keep the type of matter-energy pattern instantiated for even longer than expected, and in increasingly general / varying environments. So it is
better at being life.
Of course, if it varies itself, it is not sustaining exactly the same matter-energy pattern (nor even exactly the same core machine-building program information, which is the essence of what is being conserved in the region longer than expected.) What you have is a trade-off of the thing introducing or allowing to be introduced a tiny amount of entropy and variation into its pattern, over time, in order to conserve the vast majority of the pattern (and pattern information) over a considerably longer time.
This could be called
"The Paradox of the Evolution of Stability"
Or the "bargain that life makes with entropy".
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Perhaps not completely changed, but in the literal sense they will be completely rewritten. :P
Poor wording on my part. It's irony that my wording is correct if taken to mean exactly what it says.
So, after 8 years and careful conditions, the brilliant engineers were able to take self-replicating enzymes and watch them replicate with mutations. This is exactly why the government should stop taking my money and giving it to scientific researchers.
I worked on the NASA SETI Program in the 1980s in the Deep Space Network at NASA/JPL in Pasadena, CA. I led a small team of engineer/astronomers who provided a wide variety of planning, scheduling, and execution of radio astronomy and radar astronomy experiments withing the DSN. Sometime during that time, a senior manager of SETI, N. A. Renzetti, arranged for the late Dr. Philip Morrison to meet with my team and a few others one afternoon. There was no particular agenda, but we understood that we were there to hear about Dr. Morrison's opinions about SETI. One of my colleagues asked what his definition of life was. He replied that, boiled down to its essentials, it was the ability to reproduce. He then mentioned, almost in passing, that he had heard from a geologist at MIT about a particular variety of clay that, if given the right raw materials, could reporduce itself, but, if the raw materials were present, but the clay was not, no clay would be produced. I asked the obvious question: "How was the original batch of this clay produced?" Dr. Morrison replied that he really didn't know, but made a joke about chickens and eggs.... I've occasionally wondered about that clay over the years. Has anyone else every heard of this (possibly) prolific stuff?
Tracking comment
Well, I haven't seen your refrigerator. I can tell you that mine is getting there. I really must clean more often.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
-1? LOL. Looks like one of the silly buggers got himself some moderator privileges.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.