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.
I think the Creationists have hunted that species to the brink of extinction.
Well, Genesis says that man was formed from clay into which life was breathed. But I am still waiting for scientists to offer a mechanism for spontaneous generation. Until that time I must say they offer no more than Genesis does.
Pardon me, but are you seriously suggesting that random selection, and inherited variation, are not 2 chance events?
Okay...
Naw, apparently they decided to go with the 'just because you found some more puzzle pieces doesn't mean the assembled puzzle isn't still a leap of faith' strategy.
Maybe, but I predict they won't be able to restrain themselves. The opportunity to use one of the greatest scientists of modern times to beat current scientific endeavors will be too great to resist, even tough the use will be a lie.
Consider whether in the ancient atmosphere and oceans whether or not nickel carbonyl was stable enough to be a catalyst.
No effect at all. They will still produce their elaborate calculations showing how impossibly improbable it is for random atoms, from random locations all over the universe, to randomly fly together and spontaneously form a DNA molecule, or a living cell, or whatever. If they knew anything about organic chemistry, they would understand that it's difficult to prevent organic molecules from forming; they've even been discovered in space. But then, if they had any exposure to actual science, they wouldn't be creationists, would they?
Neither selection nor inheritance is random.
Sounds more like two different questions being asked in one sentence.
Random selection - the combining of 'random mutation' and 'natural selection'.
Inherited variation - the combining of 'inherited traits' and 'genetic variation'.
All done to create a strawman to make it appear that evolution is random.
You really have no clue, do you?
The Biblical order of life being created on Earth is the same as the evolutionists tell us it happened, also. First, plants then, sea creatures, then birds, then land animals and man last. Hmm.
Alternate view, surely, surely.
well, except that land animals came before birds.
As you find out how each step works, they will add up to certainty.
The ID crowd is already anticipating this and have coined the phrase Intelligent Evolution. Denton has written a book about it, and Dembski might be coming on board.
And those poor creationists have to keep selling their souls a little at a time to keep up with 'the enemy of their enemy'. Sad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.