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.
The existence of airborne bacteria isn't relevant to the original post.
Simple water molecules floating in air "spontaneously" organize themselves into snowflakes, each of which is different (in isotopic content.)
"Simple water molecules floating in air "spontaneously" organize themselves into snowflakes, each of which is different (in isotopic content.)"
Point taken. Please understand though, that when someone posts something like that on these posts, it usually is in "attack dog" mode. Likening spontaneous generation to abiogenesis is a typical creationist tactic, so please pardon me for misreading your motives.
And, you might want to switch to decaf.
Actually, I've had no caffeine yet today - I think that's the problem. I'll go have some coffee now. :^)
No problem. We are on the same side.
Please see above. In the future I will be very very careful about linking issues from the history of science to these threads. Very touchy group...
I kind of like Gen 1:24... "Then God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind:...'" and Gen 2:7 "Then the Lordformed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man beccame a living being."
It's not the history (which is of great interest), it's the continuity of topic. Note that the experiments you described have been quoted for years as a disproof of evolution.
And there is so much clay around, and so many kinds of clay.
See? See? This proves that Adam was made from dirt!
Got it. It shan't happen again. I had not realized just how touchy this subject has become--among the science folks. I know now.
NABs interpretation of Chapter 2:7 "the LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being."
If chapter 2 is stripped of its theology, it tells a story of Eve who evolved from Adam who evolved from the ground.
To believe even the basic biomechanics of a cell happened by chance does, indeed, take extraordinary faith, much moreso the assembly of cells into patterns and higher life forms. Just as it takes faith that it all happened by accident, it takes blind faith to believe that "science" will some day find how that Grand Accident occured, and faith that it wasn't designed, despite appearances.
I realize some "scientific" minds hate to be accused of having faith, as they associate common connotations of the word with emotion rather than evidence. So let's call it what it is as practiced by evolutionists: blind trust in Something as yet undiscovered and undefined. At least Anthony Few was honest enough to see that much.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
No one believes a cell came together by chance. Find another red herring.
I wonder how this will affect the calculations of the mathematical improbability crowd.
"If chapter 2 is stripped of its theology, it tells a story of Eve who evolved from Adam who evolved from the ground"
One might even discover there were different hues of "clay"!!!!!
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