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Scientists identify substance that may have sparked life on earth
- weard_beard 4y agoLook at this graph! It shows how life evolved from Nickelback.
- blakesterz 4y agoTurns out this isn't wrong... "After sequences of experiments, researchers concluded the best candidate was Nickelback. The peptide is made of 13 amino acids and binds two nickel ions. Nickel, they reasoned, was an abundant metal in early oceans. When bound to the peptide, the nickel atoms become potent catalysts, attracting additional protons and electrons and producing hydrogen gas. Hydrogen, the researchers reasoned, was also more abundant on early Earth and would have been a critical source of energy to power metabolism."
- tekla 4y ago[flagged]
- FrustratedMonky 4y agoProofs for and against hold no sway, because Faith is beyond needing a proof. Why arguing with those with faith based on proofs go no where.
- toss1 4y agoSeems that lack of proof is a core axiom. If a God provided proof of it's existence as a God, then worship or regarding the God as a God would not be an act of free will; no leap of faith would be required.
- edgyquant 4y agoThe religious would say theirs proof everywhere. You just fundamentally have a different worldview so there’s no point in the debate.
- teawrecks 4y agoThere's proof everywhere that this world is just an incredibly detailed simulation. Even if you inspect the tiniest grain of sand, the simulation is such high resolution that you simply can't tell it apart from a real world. Just goes to show how perfect the sim is. Praise the sim, blessed be its circuits.
- doodpants 4y agoIt shows how the hell we wound up like this.
- excalibur 4y agoGiven that it focuses on the precursors for life, one could implore people to look at this proto-graph
- alexpotato 4y ago> they are calling “Nickelback,” not because it has anything to do with the Canadian rock band Being a Rutgers grad, this 100% sounds like a troll that would come out of a New Jersey based institution of higher learning.
- whalesalad 4y agoMeanwhile, physicists in Tallahassee, Florida have identified the Creed particle, which has little electromagnetic arms wide open.
- hipsterstal1n 4y agoAs a fellow Rutgers alumni, I love the trolling effort but am disappointed it wasn't something like "Pork Roll", Danny DeVito, or "Bon Jovi" so we could have sentences like "Only after Bon Jovi could life as we know it develop on Earth".
- 0ggy 4y agoIt's (my) life, it's now or never...
- actually_a_dog 4y agoMy favorite along those lines is the Cox-Zucker machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%E2%80%93Zucker_machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox%E2%80%93Zucker_machine
- redconfetti 4y agoepic
- consumer451 4y agoI get it now. Science is not the pursuit of the ultimate truth. The goal is to insert the ultimate juvenile prank into the historical record. Big Science should really advertise that up front. It would be good for recruitment.
- gilleain 4y agoThe material section of the paper (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq1990 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq1990) links to this github repo for some of the software used : https://github.com/protCAD/protCAD https://github.com/protCAD/protCAD The models also are available at the 'Model archive' - eg https://modelarchive.org/doi/10.5452/ma-iyjyy https://modelarchive.org/doi/10.5452/ma-iyjyy
- legrande 4y ago> We believe the change was sparked by a few small precursor proteins that performed key steps in an ancient metabolic reaction Anyone believe the Panspermia[0] theory? > Panspermia proposes that organisms such as bacteria, complete with their DNA, could be transported by means such as comets through space to planets including Earth. For all we know there could have been an Earth-like planet that had life in the early solar system, and they got destroyed by large impacts, and some of that life rained down on Earth (in a simple form). There is also the theory that life propagated from distant star systems that harbored life (or still do) and had enough time to spread to Earth. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
- roelschroeven 4y agoThat doesn't really change the question if how life originated though, does it? It only proposes another place of origin, not a method of origin.
- hutzlibu 4y agoYes indeed. But maybe the conditions for life to form are so exotic, that they are not to be found on earth?
- andrewflnr 4y agoWhy would we believe that, though? Why bother with the extra layer of indirection, through an environment we know even less about? Then there's the fact that life appeared on earth almost as soon as it was possible for it to exist. Either it was easy and formed really quickly on Earth, or space is/was so full of it that earth got contaminated almost immediately... which still implies life is common and easy. Panspermia just doesn't help.
- hutzlibu 4y ago"Panspermia just doesn't help." It helps exploring other options, since we are still unable to create artificial life. No one is saying to stop those experiments. But maybe they cannot succed, in the same way the alchimists could not create gold in the middle ages - because some fundamental understanding or ingredient is missing. (today we can create gold, but it is not worth it with our current technology) "Either it was easy and formed really quickly on Earth, or space is/was so full of it that earth got contaminated almost immediately" Or it was just random chance, that a "contaminated" comet hit earth at the right time, or an alien vessel passed by and planted life seeds. We simply don't know. So we cannot rule those options out at this moment. And "almost immediately" is still in the timespan of millions of years, so plenty of time for many asteroids to hit the earth and possibly bring life.
- konfusinomicon 4y agoso what kind of digested fat sandwich was it found in?
- tabtab 4y ago[flagged]
- eql5 4y agoThe modern translation of "God" is called "Time" -- makes everything otherwise impossible -- possible!!
- tabtab 4y agoPer an Einsteinian viewpoint, they could be the same thing. Einstein basically labeled the creating force "God" without characterizing it as any specific person, place, force, or thing(s); saying, "I don't really know yet what the creating force is; that's what science is all about."
- eql5 4y agoOk, so God is defined as "transcendent", but Time (in substitution of God) can't be transcendent, otherwise it could not possibly be subject to science...
- RHSman2 4y agoBeer
- Iwan-Zotow 4y agoVodka ?
- sideshowb 4y ago...drinks alien liquid, jumps into waterfall
- Octokiddie 4y ago> Based on laboratory studies, Rutgers scientists say one of the most likely chemical candidates that kickstarted life was a simple peptide with two nickel atoms they are calling “Nickelback,” not because it has anything to do with the Canadian rock band, but because its backbone nitrogen atoms bond two critical nickel atoms. A peptide is a constituent of a protein made up of a few elemental building blocks known as amino acids. Very doubtful this has anything to do with origins of life. The complex catalyzes the production of dihydrogen from hydrogen cation. It's a cool reaction, but to say this may have "sparked life on earth" is way off. Small peptide catalysts like this one have been known for some time and can even be designed for a wide range of reactions. A Nobel prize was awarded for this very field a few years back.
- gus_massa 4y agoI agree. Perhaps I'm too enthusiastic about the RNA world hypothesis, but if the RNA world hypothesis is true, shouldn't they be looking for a Ribozyme (made of RNA) instead of and Enzyme (made of protein)? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribozyme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribozyme
- flobosg 4y agoSome versions of the RNA world hypothesis state that small peptides acted as cofactors for ribozymes. At some point their roles were reversed, with nucleotides ending up as cofactors for protein-based catalysts (enzymes).
- gus_massa 4y agoI learned that this year and it's so obvious that it hurts that I didn't thought it myself. [I'm not a Biologist, so I guess it is not mandatory that I make brilliant Biology discoveries :) .] [Yes, I know it's not confirmed, but IMHO it's too good not to be true.]
- dekhn 4y agopeptoids
- hakehakehake 4y agoAh yes, Midi-chlorians.
- dukeofdoom 4y agono proof, just speculation.
- simonh 4y agoIt's unlikely we'll ever be able to prove how life got started. The best we'll ever do is show how it could have started, if we're lucky with actual experiments that demonstrate the processes.
- marcosdumay 4y agoThe text on the press release (and this title here) has almost no relation to what is on the paper. It's amazing. Except for it being somewhat related to abiogenesis, I don't think it gets any single thing correctly.
- deafpolygon 4y agoNickelback, the prequel to Brokeback that nobody asked for.