Primordial Soup Computer Program Tracks Life's Beginnings At Subatomic Level

i am sure that many here are faimilar with the famous stanley miller experiment involving a mixture of chemicals determined to have been present in this planets earlier stages, and the electric shock that produced the acids responsible for life as we know it. but questions still remain concerning the exact details of those interactions that gave rise to such a spectrum of organisms. fortunately, a pair of french scientists believe they have constructed a computer model that gives us that information.

Two researchers from France used a computer model to track the fates of just a few dozen early-Earth molecules as they're exposed to electric fields of increasing strength. The model was kind of a simplified Miller experiment, reimagined for the modern age. (The kind of computing power the model required wasn't yet available in the 1950s.)

Among other things, the model tracked the formation of intermediate molecules that eventually turned into glycine, a simple amino acid that often shows up in Miller-type experiments. Before the gases made glycine, they first made organic chemicals including formic acid and formamide, the model found. In their paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists suggest that astronomers could look for these molecules on other planets and solar systems. They could be signs of the kinds of reactions that led to life on Earth.

www.popsci.com...

sorry i dont have more sources for you guys. i do feel popsci is a realiable source, so im forging ahead with it. this program should be very educational and perhaps answer some of our most earnest and desperate questions concerning how life first happened on our little rock in nowhere space. i hope to update this thread with more information later, because the article isnt the most verbose ive seen. if anyone else has more information i didnt mention here, please feel welcome to add it as needed.

Cool so if I understand this correctly, it is a computer simulation of the Miller-Ulrey experiment? Or is it tracking how evolution took over from there?

S&F in either case.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
...but questions still remain concerning the exact details of those interactions that gave rise to such a spectrum of organisms...

I think the "spectrum of organisms" we have on Earth (even we had on the early Earth) all came after the first life. I think all life on Earth that exists today had ONE SINGLE genesis. However, once that single genesis occurred, that single source of all life took off in an explosion that resulted in diverse and varied life.

Perhaps other life had its own genesis since then, but the established life on Earth from the first genesis may have had such a stranglehold on the environment that snuffed it out that subsequent life.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Cool so if I understand this correctly, it is a computer simulation of the Miller-Ulrey experiment? Or is it tracking how evolution took over from there?

S&F in either case.

recreating subatomic reactions according to the theories influenced by such experiments i think. i could be wrong, it was a fairly vaue article which irritated me.

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: TzarChasm
...but questions still remain concerning the exact details of those interactions that gave rise to such a spectrum of organisms...

I think the "spectrum of organisms" we have on Earth (even we had on the early Earth) all came after the first life. I think all life on Earth that exists today had ONE SINGLE genesis. However, once that single genesis occurred, that single source of all life took off in an explosion that resulted in diverse and varied life.

Perhaps other life had its own genesis since then, but the established life on Earth from the first genesis may have had such a stranglehold on the environment that snuffed it out that subsequent life.

why not several simultaneous instances of gensis?

The following chart gives the chemical structure of each amino acid. They all have in common a H2N,O,OH branch structure which acts as a handle to allow the molecules to be arranged, but it's the last remaining branch which varies in structure. All sorts of different endings; benzene rings from carbon, hydroxl molecules.

upload.wikimedia.org...

You don't really need much more than Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen to get these to form. But then you need a ribosome, RNA and DNA to actually get self-reproduction. That's the mystery. You could have chains of DNA/RNA floating about as the amino acids self-assembled. But you need a very specific molecule to be able to slide along that DNA in order to create duplicate copies.

a reply to: TzarChasm

"recreating subatomic reactions according to the theories influenced by such experiments i think. i could be wrong, it was a fairly vague article which irritated me."

I think that vagueness is an appropriate term to describe our current understanding of the processes that led to the genesis of life.

We will uncover the secrets of life, and I trust that our wisdom will have grown to meet this responsibility.

Meanwhile we seem to be comparing recipes for soup.

The biggest problem is life must be either left handed OR right handed amino acids (it's left btw). Naturally occurring amino acids form in a 50-50 split. The odds of a full chain developing naturally as only left (or right) handed is mathematically impossible. It's the biggest mystery concerning the origin of life.

www.forbes.com...

originally posted by: stormcell
You don't really need much more than Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen to get these to form. But then you need a ribosome, RNA and DNA to actually get self-reproduction. That's the mystery. You could have chains of DNA/RNA floating about as the amino acids self-assembled. But you need a very specific molecule to be able to slide along that DNA in order to create duplicate copies.

Don't forget there are other replication mechanisms that were probably involved before life became life as we know it by storing information in RNA / DNA.

I don't see it as too big a stretch to go from something like a prion to more complex information storage

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

You might like this article...

www.sciencedaily.com...

I suspect these guys have a rather good hypothesis. It makes sense, as polarization of the light does affect photo-chemical reactions.

You all realize that the milller experiment has been shown to be wrong ,?

Right?

I would like to see what chemicals they put in there

Its now thought that the early earth atmosphere was nothing like what miller claimed

originally posted by: pauljs75
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

You might like this article...

www.sciencedaily.com...

I suspect these guys have a rather good hypothesis. It makes sense, as polarization of the light does affect photo-chemical reactions.

I have read the hypothesis and I don't think it holds much water that life could have formed from those amino acids here on Earth. It would require a very long process, taking place on Earth, with only an initial investment of left handed amino acids. All subsequent ones would be a 50-50 split.

originally posted by: Another_Nut
You all realize that the milller experiment has been shown to be wrong ,?

Right?

I would like to see what chemicals they put in there

Its now thought that the early earth atmosphere was nothing like what miller claimed

The Miller experiment only used water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen. This means with oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. Would these elements not be present on Earth together at any point?

Methane might be where the issue lies as it is normally produced by biological processes. It can be catalysed or produced using electricity however.

Sealed phials from Millers experiments were opened and it was found he had actually produced over 20 amino acids rather than the 11 he detected.

Amino acids have also been detected in space, so their formation must be a regular process.

In short

No

More like nitrogen,hydrogen sulfide,sulfer dioxide and carbon dioxide

And that just the tip . U have to have allt bbb e right ingredients with getittng any of the wrong ines mixed in there

Its really quite a failure now days and only looked at as a footnote in history

Like all of the pillars darwinism now pretty much
a proven fraud
a reply to: EasyPleaseMe

a reply to: Another_Nut

*Sigh*

Go on then, let's hear how you reconcile this with your creationist beliefs. Explain why the Miller–Urey experiment is wrong.

a reply to: Another_Nut

Your list included the elements i mentioned...

Can you explain how the Miller experiment was a failure? And exactly how is Darwinism a proven fraud?

a reply to: Another_Nut

You all realize that the milller experiment has been shown to be wrong ,?

You do realize that research into this area didn't stop in the 1950's with the Miller-Urey experiment? There has literally been another sixty years of work around modifying the conditions of the experiment to match what we understand about the primordial atmosphere. Guess what happens when you refine the conditions of the experiment to more closely match our current understanding of the primordial atmosphere? You actually get even better results than Miller-Urey... instead of "just" amino acids, you start getting nucleobase precursors, nucleobases, and other precursors to RNA.

Right?

That "the milller experiment has been shown to be wrong"? Guess you're wrong on this.

I would like to see what chemicals they put in there

Notwithstanding the fact that research in this area didn't come to a standstill in 1953, when Miller published "A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions", have you even tried to look it up? It's widely available and, I believe, in the public domain. From the second paragraph of the paper:

In order to test this hypothesis, an apparatus was built to circulate [methane], [ammonia], [water], and [hydrogen gas] past an electric discharge.

I bracketed the compounds because I've replaced the formulas from the original with their colloquial names since I don't know how to do subscripts on this forum.

Its now thought that the early earth atmosphere was nothing like what miller claimed

Yes, it's somewhat different from what was understood at the time, but it's definitely not "nothing" like it. And it's not what Miller "claimed", it's what was understood by scientists at the time.