Sludge In Flask Gives Clues To Origin of Life

sciencehabit writes "In the 1950s, scientist Stanley Miller conducted a series of experiments in which he zapped gas-filled flasks with electricity. The most famous of these, published in 1952, showed that such a process could give rise to amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. But a later experiment, conducted in 1958, sat on the shelf--never analyzed by Miller. Now, scientists have gone back and analyzed the sludge at the bottom of this flask and found even more amino acids than before--and better evidence that lightning and volcanic gasses may have helped create life on Earth."

Comments

RNA World Hypothesis Says No

[Samantha Wright]

In the fifties, when these experiments was set in motion, it had just recently been proven that DNA was the mechanism by which cells passed on their programming to their offspring. Prior to that, the common belief was that proteins did all the work, and that DNA was just a structural fibre like cellulose. Today, we're strongly of the opinion that not only was protein less relevant to early life, but probably completely irrelevant, as we've determined that RNA can perform the role of both DNA (information storage) and proteins (enzymes and structure). Evidence suggests that it once performed both of these roles exclusively, and that DNA and proteins evolved because they were tools better-suited to certain tasks.

THEREFORE: the availability of amino acids isn't relevant to the origin of life; only that they're around later for higher life forms to evolve. We really need to worry about the availability of ribonucleotides. The idea that we need to worry about the availability of amino acids only comes later.

Re:RNA World Hypothesis Says No

[drooling-dog]

We really need to worry about the availability of ribonucleotides.

Then you'll want to check out one of my favorite papers of the last several years (if you like organic chem):

Powner, M., Gerland, B., & Sutherland, J., Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions, Nature 459, 239-242 (2009).

These are activated (i.e., as the phosphates) ribonucleotides being synthesized in fairly high yields from a few simple molecules under mild conditions. It still blows my mind.