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Artificial molecule evolves in the lab
New Scientist ^ | January 8, 2009 | Ewen Callaway

Posted on 01/09/2009 10:46:53 AM PST by Coyoteman

A new molecule that performs the essential function of life - self-replication - could shed light on the origin of all living things.

If that wasn't enough, the laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube to double itself ever more swiftly.

"Obviously what we're trying to do is make a biology," says Gerald Joyce, a biochemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He hopes to imbue his team's molecule with all the fundamental properties of life: self-replication, evolution, and function.

Joyce and colleague Tracey Lincoln made their chemical out of RNA because most researchers think early life stored information in this sister molecule to DNA. And unlike the stuff of our genomes, RNA molecules can catalyse chemical reactions.

"We're trying to jump in at the last signpost we have back there in the early history of life," Joyce says.

Continues...

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: artificial; creation; godsgravesglyphs; origins; rna
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To: mgstarr

I can’t stand these so-called theologists with absolutely no background in science attempting to explain the origins of life...


21 posted on 01/09/2009 11:15:03 AM PST by cryptical ("The future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed." - William Gibson)
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To: editor-surveyor

All from “PhD”’s, right?


22 posted on 01/09/2009 11:45:31 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: theFIRMbss

You must care an awful lot!


23 posted on 01/09/2009 11:48:37 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks allot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: Westbrook
After the efforts of thousands of scientists all over the world involving millions of man-hours of dedicated research using billions of dollars worth of the latest hi-tech biogen equipment, a primitive RNA molecule, based on existing RNA molecules, has been synthesized, proving once and for all that no intelligence is necessary for life to have started abiogenically.

*snicker*

24 posted on 01/09/2009 11:49:08 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: UglyinLA
"This is like taking a box of Betty Crocker cake mix, adding water, and saying Whoa I created a cake."

You weren't supposed to notice that.

25 posted on 01/09/2009 11:49:55 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks allot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: editor-surveyor; Coyoteman

“laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA)”...He hopes to imbue his team’s molecule with all the fundamental properties of life...Joyce and colleague Tracey Lincoln made their chemical out of RNA...Joyce’s team created...Further lab tinkering made this molecule better at copying itself, but this is not the same as bringing it to life...Lincoln redesigned the molecule to forge a sister RNA...”I wouldn’t call these molecules alive,” he cautions...Joyce says his team has endowed its molecule with another function...More fundamentally, to mimic biology, a molecule must gain new functions on the fly, without laboratory tinkering. Joyce says he has no idea how to clear this hurdle with his team’s RNA molecule....”If somebody makes something great in the lab, it’s fantastic. But really the origin of life on Earth is an historical problem that we’re never going to be able to witness and verify,” he says. (Bingo!—GGG)

Does it ever occur to these scientists (who are made in God’s image) that they are intelligently designing (non-living) molecules to mimic God’s pre-existing intelligent designs?


26 posted on 01/09/2009 11:50:57 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
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To: cryptical; mgstarr
I can’t stand these so-called theologists with absolutely no background in science attempting to explain the origins of life...

Except that scientists have no explanation of the origins of life, so they're no further ahead than the theologians.

At least for the theologian, we have the input from the One who did it. He should know what He's talking about it anyone.

And scientists have exactly what? concerning the origin of life?

27 posted on 01/09/2009 11:52:42 AM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: the invisib1e hand
"clearly the important facts are being left out."

The facts inadvertantly failed to support their contention, and thus had to be omitted :o(

28 posted on 01/09/2009 11:52:42 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks allot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: Westbrook; editor-surveyor
After the efforts of thousands of scientists all over the world involving millions of man-hours of dedicated research using billions of dollars worth of the latest hi-tech biogen equipment, a primitive RNA molecule, based on existing RNA molecules, has been synthesized, proving once and for all that no intelligence is necessary for life to have started abiogenically.

The crucial difference being the timespan allowed. Billions of years vs. a few manhours. I'm surprised you overlooked this. [/sarc]

29 posted on 01/09/2009 11:53:48 AM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
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To: cryptical

Blasphemy. ;-)


30 posted on 01/09/2009 11:54:45 AM PST by verity ("Lord, what fools we mortals be!")
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To: GunRunner
"I’m pretty sure he’s on your side; he’s inviting freeper creationists to come and discuss."

Heh, heh - Poor Wiley!

31 posted on 01/09/2009 11:55:30 AM PST by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks allot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: metmom
At least for the theologian, we have the input from the One who did it.

So do the Hindus, and every other religion out there.

By your logic, a believer in Norse mythology is more knowledgeable about the universe than a geologist or an astronomer.

32 posted on 01/09/2009 12:00:09 PM PST by GunRunner
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To: Coyoteman

Microevolution is trivial to demonstrate. It doesn’t affirm or refute species-level evolution.


33 posted on 01/09/2009 12:04:25 PM PST by Jim Noble (Long May Our Land Be Bright With Freedom's Holy Light)
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To: UglyinLA

Well, more like a cake that keeps on making cake as you pour in more ingredients.


34 posted on 01/09/2009 12:13:39 PM PST by MeanWestTexan (Beware Obama's Reichstag fire.)
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To: UglyinLA

Well, more like a cake that keeps on making cake as you pour in more ingredients.


35 posted on 01/09/2009 12:13:39 PM PST by MeanWestTexan (Beware Obama's Reichstag fire.)
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To: editor-surveyor

[[Not content with achieving one hallmark of life in the lab, Joyce and Lincoln sought to evolve their molecule by natural selection. They did this by mutating sequences of the RNA building blocks, so that 288 possible ribozymes could be built by mixing and matching different pairs of shorter RNAs.

What came out bore an eerie resemblance to Darwin’s theory of natural selection: a few sequences proved winners, most losers. The victors emerged because they could replicate fastest while surrounded by competition, Joyce says.]]

Hmmmm- Swell, but like the link Coyote posts abotu the supposed rise in non intelligent complexity which uses a very sophisticated software program to preprogram certain outcomes, while protecting hte process from any unwanted bad effects, were Joyce’s experiments also tightly and intelligently controlled? Protecting certain outcomes until the desired results arose? Article doesn’t say, but I’ll bet this is the case-

[[Joyce says his team has endowed its molecule with another function, although he will not say what that might be before his findings are published.]]

Yup- Another unrealistic attempt to kick God out of creation by intelligently designing systems under strict scientifically sterile lab conditions-

[[More fundamentally, to mimic biology, a molecule must gain new functions on the fly, without laboratory tinkering. Joyce says he has no idea how to clear this hurdle with his team’s RNA molecule. “It doesn’t have open-ended capacity for Darwinian evolution.”]]

Woopsie- another dead end for Macroevolution- surprised this admission wasn’t written in microscopic letters and at the end of the article under a list of intelligence endowed contribotors to the project

[[”If somebody makes something great in the lab, it’s fantastic. But really the origin of life on Earth is an historical problem that we’re never going to be able to witness and verify,” he says.]]

Oh Darn!

On a more scientifically important point, I’ve created the perpetual motion machine- the only problem is that it needs energy to keep going, but by golly it’s a perpetual motion machine none-the-less- I declare it so because I got the parts to move!


36 posted on 01/09/2009 12:14:04 PM PST by CottShop
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To: CottShop
But really the origin of life on Earth is an historical problem that we’re never going to be able to witness and verify,” he says.

I guess that means that origins are *not science* after all.

Now we're back to square one. Only the theologians have anything approaching an answer.

37 posted on 01/09/2009 12:19:35 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: CottShop
Another unrealistic attempt to kick God out of creation by intelligently designing systems under strict scientifically sterile lab conditions-

On a planet before life existed, the surroundings, by logic, would be biologically sterile.

38 posted on 01/09/2009 12:20:25 PM PST by MyTwoCopperCoins
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To: Coyoteman

Wow, let’s substantiate evolution by redefining it!


39 posted on 01/09/2009 12:20:26 PM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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To: editor-surveyor
I love it. Joyce and Lincoln specially design a molecule out of two precursor molecules which already have well-known self-replication properties, engage in further "lab tinkering" so as to encourage self-replication, and then set up specific experimental designs which are meant to encourage the molecule to "mutate" in the right direction.

So, I guess they just experimentally demonstrated intelligent design, right?

40 posted on 01/09/2009 12:29:54 PM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (Nihil utile nisi quod honestum - Marcus Tullius Cicero)
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