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Shaped from clay [origin of life]
Nature Magazine ^ | 03 November 2005 | Philip Ball

Posted on 11/04/2005 5:00:06 AM PST by PatrickHenry

Minerals help molecules thought to have been essential for early life to form.

A team of US scientists may have found the 'primordial womb' in which the first life on Earth was incubated.

Lynda Williams and colleagues at Arizona State University in Tempe have discovered that certain types of clay mineral convert simple carbon-based molecules to complex ones in conditions mimicking those of hot, wet hydrothermal vents (mini-volcanoes on the sea bed). Such complex molecules would have been essential components of the first cell-like systems on Earth.

Having helped such delicate molecules to form, the clays can also protect them from getting broken down in the piping hot water issuing from the vents, the researchers report in the journal Geology [Williams L. B., et al. Geology, 33. 913 - 916 (2005).].

"It's very interesting that the clays preserve them," says James Ferris, a specialist on the chemical origins of life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. "It shows that this could be an environment where complex organic molecules can be formed."

Some like it hot

Hydrothermal vents are created when seawater that has seeped through cracks in the seafloor is heated by magma just below the surface. The water streams back out of the rock in a plume that can reach temperatures of around 400 °C.

Vents are a favourite candidate for the site where life first appeared. Their heat provides an energy source; the minerals provide nutrients; and the deep-sea setting would have protected primitive organisms from the destructive meteorite impacts that scoured the planet's surface early in its history.

But researchers have long wondered how, if early life did form in this environment, it escaped being boiled and fried by the harsh conditions.

The Arizona State team has shown that clay minerals commonly found at vents can encase organic molecules, keeping them intact.

Between the sheets

The group simulated the vent environment in the laboratory, immersing various types of clay in pressurized water at 300 °C for several weeks and looking at the fate of a simple organic compound, methanol, in this stew. They chose methanol because their earlier work had shown that the compound could be formed in a vent environment from simple gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

Clays generally consist of sheets made of aluminium, silicon and oxygen atoms, which are stacked on top of one another. In some of these materials, such as the clays saponite and montmorillonite, there is room for other atoms and molecules to slip between the layers.

Spouting soup

The researchers found that the methanol in their artificial vent system was converted to various large organic molecules over six weeks or so, so long as the clay's layers were spaced widely enough to hold the compounds.

"The clay provides a safe haven for the organic molecules, essentially like a 'primordial womb'," the team reports. Eventually, changes in the clay's mineral structure caused by heat, pressure and time may cause the sheets to close up and expel the molecules inside. But they think that some of these could spout out from the clay into less hostile environments than the hottest part of the vent, creating an organic soup in which life might arise.

These findings add weight to the idea that clays were the key to the origin of life. Previous research has shown that clays act as catalysts for the formation of polymer molecules such as the precursors of proteins and DNA. They can also encourage lipid molecules to arrange themselves into cell-like compartments called vesicles.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abiogenesis; catastrophism; clay; crevolist; evolution; godsgravesglyphs; origins; shaped; shapedfromclay; thomasgold
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To: From many - one.; MineralMan

Perhaps we should form a 60s club.


121 posted on 11/04/2005 11:45:49 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138
My son had a junior high science teacher who asserted that snakes don't have bones.

Ever try eating one??? Might not technically be bones but there are an awful lot of 'em!

122 posted on 11/04/2005 11:46:53 AM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: js1138

"60s club"

Sounds good but I'd graduate pretty fast.

Geezers club?


123 posted on 11/04/2005 11:50:40 AM PST by From many - one.
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To: PatrickHenry

ping


124 posted on 11/04/2005 11:51:49 AM PST by GOPPachyderm (... so that men are without excuse)
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To: Coyoteman

I've always found something else on the menu more attractive. Where I live gator tail is on the menu at several restaurants. I've passed that up also.


125 posted on 11/04/2005 11:52:23 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: From many - one.

Hey, it's a whole decade.


126 posted on 11/04/2005 11:53:02 AM PST by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138

"Where I live gator tail is on the menu at several restaurants. "

Don't. It's very good. I'm assuming that they're breading and frying it. Delicious!


127 posted on 11/04/2005 11:56:51 AM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: js1138

"Perhaps we should form a 60s club."

I'd rather forget it, to tell you the truth. [grin]


128 posted on 11/04/2005 11:57:21 AM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: PatrickHenry

My Clay is Aiken!


129 posted on 11/04/2005 12:01:10 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: PatrickHenry

Oh NO!

Mr. Bill!


130 posted on 11/04/2005 12:01:34 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: js1138
Eventually, the secondary organisms that resulted from this process achieved a certain complexity that gave rise to life as we know it.

Translation:

A miracle occurs.....

131 posted on 11/04/2005 12:02:54 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: RoadTest

Amen to that tagline!


132 posted on 11/04/2005 12:03:45 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: js1138

They never will accept it. They're a group of people who believe they are the personal recipients of all truth. Hence truth isn't objective. If truth is objective, you can be wrong about it and evidence exposes the error.


133 posted on 11/04/2005 12:06:02 PM PST by Varda
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To: js1138

Glad you read my posts and things are clear. I had just now signed on to answer you and I am glad I did not need to jump ugly...I hate when that happens.

Have a wonderful weekend. Mine will be spent raking up the fallen detritus of deciduous trees.


134 posted on 11/04/2005 12:07:01 PM PST by Pharmboy (The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones.)
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To: js1138
I'm wondering why you posted irrelevant spam on this thread.

Me too!

Joshua 24:15-16
15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

135 posted on 11/04/2005 12:07:02 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Quark2005
The article demonstrates that certain organic compounds (basic building blocks of life) can arise spontaneously under the right circumstances.

Sorry, but it DEMONSTRATES nothing.

It just CLAIMS that it does.

If this be Science: replicate it!

136 posted on 11/04/2005 12:08:27 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: VadeRetro
YES, IT IS SPECULATIVE.

DUH!


137 posted on 11/04/2005 12:09:27 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: MineralMan
I also find it fascinating that it took only six weeks for the seeded methanol to alter into more complex organic compounds.

Where did the SEEDS come from?

Who did the SEEDING?

138 posted on 11/04/2005 12:10:42 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Varda
If chapter 2 is stripped of its theology, it tells a story of Eve who evolved from Adam who evolved from the ground.

If a person is NOT stripped of their reading comprehension, it tells a story of GOD who creates with a Word.

139 posted on 11/04/2005 12:12:46 PM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: js1138

Not for me.

Think...I said I was reading about science 60 years ago. ;->


140 posted on 11/04/2005 12:13:18 PM PST by From many - one.
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