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How Life Began: New Research Suggests Simple Approach
livescience ^ | 09 June 2006 | By Michael Schirber

Posted on 06/13/2006 9:42:31 AM PDT by flevit

Somewhere on Earth, close to 4 billion years ago, a set of molecular reactions flipped a switch and became life. Scientists try to imagine this animating event by simplifying the processes that characterize living things. ...... Shapiro, however, thinks this so-called "RNA world" is still too complex to be the origin of life. Information-carrying molecules like RNA are sequences of molecular "bits." The primordial soup would be full of things that would terminate these sequences before they grew long enough to be useful, Shapiro says. ........ The researchers propose in this month's issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution that this stripped-down geochemical cycle was what the first organisms used to power their growth. "This cycle is where all evolution emanated from," Ferry says. "It is the father of all life."

Shapiro is skeptical: Something had to form the two proteins. But he thinks this discovery might point in the right direction. "We have to let nature instruct us," he says.

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


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bewareofluddites; crevolist; evolution; idisfordolts; idisforkids; sillycreationist; yecliars; youngearthcultists; youngearthmullahs
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1 posted on 06/13/2006 9:42:34 AM PDT by flevit
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To: flevit
The primordial soup would be full of things...

Lunchtime!!!

2 posted on 06/13/2006 9:43:50 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,400+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: flevit
Somewhere on Earth, close to 4 billion years ago, a set of molecular reactions flipped a switch and became life.

...and I thought Christianity required a lot of faith...

3 posted on 06/13/2006 9:45:59 AM PDT by Onelifetogive (Freerepublic - The website where "Freepers" is not in the spell checker dictionary...)
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To: theDentist
Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,400+ snide replies and counting!

Is it now 17,401+ snide replies and counting? *\;-)

4 posted on 06/13/2006 9:46:43 AM PDT by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† | Iran Azadi | SONY: 5yst3m 0wn3d - it's N0t Y0urs)
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To: flevit
Scientists try to imagine this animating event by simplifying the processes that characterize living things.

Nice try attempting to get away from "irreducible complexity," but it won't work.

5 posted on 06/13/2006 9:46:53 AM PDT by Kenny Bunkport (Left's reaction to "GODLESS": "They haven't hated a book this much since the Bible." (pissant))
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To: Onelifetogive

Casue and effect. Read it, learn it, live it.


6 posted on 06/13/2006 9:46:56 AM PDT by orionblamblam (I'm interested in science and preventing its corruption, so here I am.)
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To: sionnsar

Give or take... some are deliberate, some just turn out that way.


7 posted on 06/13/2006 9:48:34 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,401+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: orionblamblam

And indeed, *cause* and effect. Dyslexia: further evidence that the Designer rode the short bus.


8 posted on 06/13/2006 9:48:41 AM PDT by orionblamblam (I'm interested in science and preventing its corruption, so here I am.)
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To: theDentist

9 posted on 06/13/2006 9:49:31 AM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: flevit
omewhere on Earth, close to 4 billion years ago, a set of molecular reactions flipped a switch and became life.

This would be on the fifth day, then?

10 posted on 06/13/2006 9:50:20 AM PDT by atomicpossum (Replies must follow approved guidelines or you will be kill-filed without appeal.)
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To: atomicpossum
This would be on the fifth day, then?

Yes. Afternoon. About 4:30-ish.

11 posted on 06/13/2006 9:52:37 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,401+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: atomicpossum

Yes, and on the 8th day God made Chuck Norris...


12 posted on 06/13/2006 9:55:17 AM PDT by Zavien Doombringer (Mr. Franklin, what form of customes did you create in Tiajunna? A beeber, Madam, if you can stune it)
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To: billorites

Right back atcha, billo! :)

13 posted on 06/13/2006 9:55:34 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,401+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: Zavien Doombringer

And his twin: Jack Bauer.


14 posted on 06/13/2006 9:56:17 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,401+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: flevit

YEs, this is very much the way my Ford Taurus appeared in a field in front of my house. Why is it that secularists believe that only humans have the power to create anything?


15 posted on 06/13/2006 9:56:17 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot
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To: flevit

How is it that science can speak on the origins of life? How is this testable, repeatable, falsifiable, etc.?

I'm just a dumb believer in the Scriptures, with no PhD. after my name -- I need some help with this....


16 posted on 06/13/2006 9:57:18 AM PDT by Theo
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To: Kenny Bunkport
This origin of life based on small molecules is sometimes called "metabolism first" (to contrast it with the "genes first" RNA world). To answer critics who say that small-molecule chemistry is not organized enough to produce life, Shapiro introduces the concept of an energetically favorable "driver reaction" that would act as a constant engine to run the various cycles.

Driving the first step in evolution

A possible candidate for Shapiro's driver reaction might have been recently discovered in an undersea microbe, Methanosarcina acetivorans, which eats carbon monoxide and expels methane and acetate (related to vinegar).

I agree with you - I would assume that this "missing link" Methanosarcina acetivorans contains DNA, which makes the example to help bolster the newest theory an example of why it may not be viable/valid, since the theory requires non-DNA life as the reaction to the "switch" that started it all.

Isn't it neat how they can so blithely accept a moment where there is no life, then all of a sudden it exists, yet they are so averse to accepting a God, existing before time, that is able to speak (throw the switch) the Universe (and so much more) into existence?

17 posted on 06/13/2006 10:00:57 AM PDT by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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To: Neoliberalnot

In truth, they don't. It's just that in their world, they must attempt to postulate theories that do not depend upon God. It must be provable thru scientific means, not thru faith. As one professor told me: "The idea is to be able to explain our world around us without having to blame our ignorance on God. He created it. We're just trying to understand how. And the more we learn, the more ignorant we find we truly are."


18 posted on 06/13/2006 10:01:20 AM PDT by theDentist (Qwerty ergo typo : I type, therefore I misspelll. 17,401+ snide replies and counting!)
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To: flevit

Science writers should know something about science. This first paragraph is useless with its absence of coherent information, e.g., "This cycle is where all evolution emanated from," Ferry says. "It is the father of all life."---What cycle? There's none mentioned in the text before it.


19 posted on 06/13/2006 10:01:34 AM PDT by Rudder
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To: theDentist

LOL


20 posted on 06/13/2006 10:02:48 AM PDT by Zavien Doombringer (Mr. Franklin, what form of customes did you create in Tiajunna? A beeber, Madam, if you can stune it)
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