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for those impatient like me (aaargh!): > Darwin was proposing that life began, not in the open ocean, but in a smaller body of water on land, which was rich in
by cblconfederate 6y ago
for those impatient like me (aaargh!):
> Darwin was proposing that life began, not in the open ocean, but in a smaller body of water on land, which was rich in chemicals
- herodoturtle 6y agoTL;DR champion. Thanks.
- kristianpaul 6y agoThats also interesting > “But it’s something that could be trying to happen even now.” Could be happening on earth still or other planets he meant?
- macintux 6y agoEarth, hence the “bacterium gobbles it up” idea.
- dividedbyzero 6y agoEverywhere the conditions for these processes are met – though it's unlikely it would be going very far on Earth, as this planet is already teeming with bacteria and other life, some of which is certain to find proto-lifeforms delicious.
- dTal 6y agoNot even proto-lifeforms - any pile of interesting organic chemicals is going to immediately be devoured (i.e. go moldy) well before it can spontaneously assemble into anything. This is why we have fridges..
- LeonB 6y agoOr just oxidized by all this pesky oxygen the damn photosynthesis keeps leaking all over the place.
- mcherm 6y agoThat omits what I consider to be a key part of the insight: that the conditions might no longer be able to give rise to new life because today existing organisms would exploit the rich molecules before they had an opportunity to produce proto-living things.
- mannykannot 6y agoThat is very plausible, and it might even be the case that once free oxygen started building up in the atmosphere (from about 2.5 bn years ago, accelerating after 1 bn ya), the environment had become chemically unsuitable. Another consequence of free oxygen is the formation of an ozone layer, reducing the UV flux at the surface. I guess the significance of that depends on whether UV helped or hindered the process.
- libraryatnight 6y agohelped or hindered, does that mean there was basically a window of opportunity and life made it?
- mongol 6y agoPerhaps not in this particular example. Without the oxygen, a bi-product of life, no ozone and no limitation of UV radiation. However other windows of opportunity may have closed. Such as seems to have happened on Mars and Venus.
- nextaccountic 6y agoNote that the oxygen in atmosphere was created by life itself. Oxygen molecules are highly reactive and without a process that continually produces them they would eventually disappear.
- cblconfederate 6y agoWhat about Mirror Life? These wrong-handed molecules would be transparent to all existing life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_life
- tim333 6y agoThe main reason it's probably right: >In 2019, researchers in Germany made all four [RNA bases] at once. They placed simple carbon-based chemicals in hot water on a mineral surface and subjected them to repeated wet-dry cycles. And no one else has been able to do that under other conditions such as undersea vents. (I guess that would then kick off RNA world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world)