Shaped from clay [origin of life]

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."

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.

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.

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.

...but since nobody has shown with any certainty what exactly homosexuality is...

Here. let ME try!

Genesis 13:13
Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.

Genesis 18:20-21
20. Then the LORD said, "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous
21. that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."

Genesis 19:4-7
4. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
5. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
6. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him
7. and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing.

Isaiah 3:9
9. The look on their faces testifies against them; they parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! They have brought disaster upon themselves.
More?
Ezekiel 16:49-50
49. "`Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
50. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

But there IS hope!!!

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders
10. nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

If you could NOT change, you would be in most pitiful shape.....

"The only evidence we have for the author of the Bible, or any book for that matter, is that, so far, only humans create text. This evidence leads me to believe that the Bible was written by a primitive nontechnical society and can not be used as an authority in anything other than that society."

Howdy there b_sharp;

What other book do you know of that could look 2000 years into the future and tell us what would be happening in our day?

Rev 13
16 He required everyone—great and small, rich and poor, slave and free—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead.

17 And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.

***A cashless society would have been un-heard of in just the last 50 years, but yet God told us it was coming.

We don't even blink a eye at the thought of having a chip inserted into us with which we can do all our banking & traveling. Or all of our medicial history contained in a chip.***

The Mark of [Your] Beast

Already, high-tech chips are being implanted in pets and other animals (usually by subcutaneous injections) so lost animals can be scanned when they are brought into shelters. The pet information is kept in a national database. What works for animals obviously works for humans.

Appearing under the dubious title of Digital AngelTM in June, a new implantable digital chip was announced in testing phase among humans. Digital AngelTM combines advanced biosensor technology with "web-enabled wireless telecommunications with Global Positioning Satellite Systems (GPS)." Digital AngelTM is capable of monitoring key body functions, such as temperature and pulse, and transmitting that data, along with accurate location information, to a ground station or monitoring facility. Already the technology exists to store a person's entire data on a single chip. The Digital AngelTM chip is powered by muscle action in the host animal or person.

While such technology has great promise - monitoring the location and medical condition of high-risk patients, locating missing pets or people, managing livestock, etc. -the dark side of this technology is immediately clear to anyone who understands what totalitarian governments of the past have attempted to do: protect themselves from their own people by monitoring and controlling everything they do.

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2001/360/

18 Wisdom is needed to understand this. Let the one who has understanding solve the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.

The Two Witnesses
Revelation 11

1 Then I was given a measuring stick, and I was told, “Go and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count the number of worshipers.

2 But do not measure the outer courtyard, for it has been turned over to the nations. They will trample the holy city for 42 months.

3 And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will be clothed in sackcloth and will prophesy during those 1,260 days.”

4 These two prophets are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of all the earth.

5 If anyone tries to harm them, fire flashes from the mouths of the prophets and consumes their enemies. This is how anyone who tries to harm them must die.

6 They have power to shut the skies so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. And they have the power to turn the rivers and oceans into blood, and to send every kind of plague upon the earth as often as they wish.

7 When they complete their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the bottomless pit will declare war against them. He will conquer them and kill them.

8 And their bodies will lie in the main street of Jerusalem, the city which is called “Sodom” and “Egypt,” the city where their Lord was crucified.

***9 And for three and a half days, all peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will come to stare at their bodies. No one will be allowed to bury them.

Who would have thought about CNN....Fox News...MSNBC being able to have their cameras trained on two dead bodies laying in the streets so the whole world can watch 2,000 years ago?***

10 All the people who belong to this world will give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them.

***It's not hard to picture all of our God haters jumping up & down for joy (just picture all the DU folks) that finally these two have been killed and won't be preaching to them anymore about God.***

11 But after three and a half days, the spirit of life from God entered them, and they stood up! And terror struck all who were staring at them.

12 Then a loud voice shouted from heaven, “Come up here!” And they rose to heaven in a cloud as their enemies watched.

Why? Please provide an explanation based in genetics that supports your assertion. Every time I hear this line of reasoning from a creationist I have to wonder if they even are aware of concepts as basic as "recessive genes".

Maybe that's because you only hear, what you want to hear, and disregard the rest.......[hey that sounds like a song]....now where did I hear that from....oh yea, Simon and....hey, wait a minute, Paul...Simon...I think we have a religious correlation here....Lucy (and I don't mean Ball) you got some 'splaining to do...

There, that should cover enough territory (not to mention my butt) now I feel better.

Ahem...

If you followed the conversation Dimensio, and actually had an interest in understanding it, you'd know that the central point I was arguing against was the assertion that natural selection exhibits a goal, or purpose.

That said, if you now want to take it upon yourself to assert that this goal, or purpose, can be demonstrated genetically, then you've also unwittingly provided the evidence to contradict it, i.e., the expression of recessive genes [in the form of homosexuality]

And does this line of reasoning mean that you accept that homosexuality is purely genetic?

Do you?

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Amen!