Community | November 18, 2008 | 38 comments

Volcanic lightning may have sparked life on Earth

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14966-volcanic-lightning-may-have-sparked-life-on-eart...

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UrbanGypsy
Part of the findings of Stanley Miller's famous 1953 experiment suggested that lightning was the catalyst that sparked the creation of amino acids from a combination of early-Earth gases. In the classic Miller-Urey experiment, a mixture of gases and water that Miller thought were present on early Earth was heated and zapped with electricity to mimic lightning. This created five identifiable amino acids.

Yet Miller tested three versions of his spark flask. One of the two lesser-know setups - the volcanic apparatus - created 22 amino acids that could be positively identified, and this is what was investigated by Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California and his colleagues.

Interestingly, other studies conducted by the late famous biochemist Sidney W. Fox found that amino acids join together when exposed to dry heat, that amino acids collected in shallow puddles along the rocky shore, and the heat of the sun caused them to form proteinoids. When proteinoids enter the water they form microspheres structures that resemble a proto-cell... the first steps in the origin of life.

I can hear the creationists screaming in frustration...
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38 comments // Volcanic lightning may have sparked life on Earth

  • onechance
    • 0
      onechance  

    • But wait! I didn't read that in my Bible!?!? BLASPHAMY!

      Aren't we supposed to be calling for all scientists to be nailed to boards now?

      Hahahahahahaha

    • 3 years ago
  • lj111
  • UrbanGypsy
  • colea4
    • 0
      colea4  

    • More theory on the existence of the world, I wonder if it actually matters how the world was created. The only benefit that I see would be to finally resolve these lifelong arguments that religions seem to instigate. However, even with proof I bet there would continue to be religious battles. People seem to need to fight and argue about something, and religion seems fill that void.
      Interesting none the less, and what a photo!

    • 3 years ago
  • widget48
    • 0
      widget48  

    • I find the comment about being a creationist and a believer in evolution intriguing. I applaud your ability to reconcile the two.
      I suppose that is similar to my own belief that fate and choice are inextircable
      It seems that in present times the two camps of creationists and evolutionists represent polar opposites and are each extreme in those parameters. Given that, when and if we ever find out where we come from we will likely discover that the answer lies somewhere in the middle where balance almost always resides.

    • 3 years ago
  • arcticspirit
  • Gtarfr3ak
    • 0
      Gtarfr3ak  

    • I don't think I'll ever quite understand why it is that creationists stick to this ideal so hard. Even if you were to prove without a shadow of a doubt that life was created in this manner and that evolution was an undeniable fact would that truly shake the foundations of your belief system? Is your faith so weak that the thought of the bible being wrong frightens and angers you?

      Now I'm not a religious person... I accept that the bible is a great book of interesting stories that often teach a great set of moral values but I would never attempt to defend the idea that all that is written there is fact.

      Personally I think that evolution will eventually just become the accepted theory of how things came to be, much in the way people slowly accepted the fact that the Earth was round and orbited the sun. I'm just not a fan of people standing in the way of scientific progress because their personal belief system differs from it. Religion and science just need to be kept apart.

    • 3 years ago
  • rlong3
  • Hendrix_Is_God
  • idealist
    • 0
      idealist  

    • im a creationist who beleives in evolution. if it seems so it is so. i loooove this study. it is soo cool! but i still want sarah palin and people like her to get this article on a peice of paper and choke on it.

      have a great day!!

    • 3 years ago
  • dean_is_rad
  • SamuraiDave
  • AbleCluster
  • hereandnow
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • hereandnow:

      There is this joke and it goes something like this:

      There are three scientist talking in a lab about how they could so create a human.

      So God pops in and says, "You think you can make a human?"

      One says, "Sure we could. We know enough about the human genome and how the world was created. We could so pull this off."

      "Ok we'll have a contest." God said.

      "Over what?"

      "Who can create a human the best."

      "Yeah" all three scientist said.

      "But...."

      "But what,' One said.

      "There's a rule"

      "What is it?"

      "You can only use supplies that you've created."

      "No problem," said one. "We like to work with our hands and most of what we've done here in this lab was created with our own hands."

      God snickers. "I created all of what is in here. Get your own stuff."

      ---

      Something like that. It's funnier another way but I wanted to give more explaining. ha....the other way is only funny via who you tell and people here wouldn't find that funny.

    • 3 years ago
  • Reddi
    • 0
      Reddi  

    • i wish i could find the article again ... but magnetite has been proposed as allowing a framework for the formation of genes ...

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • Image

    • A typical protein contains 200-300 amino acids but some are much smaller (the smallest are often called peptides) and some much larger (the largest to date is titin a protein found in skeletal and cardiac muscle; it contains 26,926 amino acids in a single chain!).

      ---------------------------------------

      22 is nothing.

    • 3 years ago
  • Cashmere
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • J_Jammer:

      Do you know the chances of such proteins actually coming together and forming life?

      It's closer to impossible than possible.

      I can't be owned. Not when I don't care either way. People thinking what they want harms me in no way.

    • 3 years ago
  • CCashman
    • 0
      CCashman  
    • J_Jammer:

      First of all, that number range (200-300) is only the average number of amino acids in a chain, not the smallest. Even your source admits that there could be far smaller chains.

      Secondly, this is a small-scale recreation of the volcanic lightning scenario. Imagine the number of amino acids you would find in a full-scale version, an experiment that would take up a rather significant amount of land. You would most certainly find a much larger amount of amino acids and possibly amino acid chains. I ventured the chain idea based on the fact that different amino acids were produced in this experiment than in any previous attempts, and that, "many of these other amino acids have hydroxyl groups attached to them, meaning they would be more reactive and more likely to create totally new molecules, given enough time."

      So it seems far more likely that this hypothesis is more valid than you currently think it is.

    • 3 years ago
  • J_Jammer
    • 0
      J_Jammer [removed]  
    • J_Jammer:

      And if it is on the right course why has not a larger scale experiment been done? Normally when someone is on the right track to proving something they go all out after the initial "small" trial pans out to be right.

      Because when you do surveys with small groups you might get this overwhelming answer and it might be similar when you survey the entire population.....and then there are times the sample survey is way off.

      Because if people are right an that's how life started then recreating a random act, shouldn't be that difficult.

      They are smarter than inanimate objects, I can assume, right?

    • 3 years ago
  • CCashman
    • 0
      CCashman  
    • J_Jammer:

      The reason why it hasn't been done on a larger scale (at least what I imagine is the reason) is that the set-up would be very expensive and he would need to seek out the necessary funds in order to start building the project. Also, the larger an apparatus is, the more likely something will contaminate it and affect the results. Give it enough money to build it and enough time to make sure everything is in tip-top shape after it is built, and then you can have the large-scale experiment. Mind you, this was published a month ago, so some time will need to pass in order for something like that to happen. Of course, I don't know if Dr. Bada is even planning on making a larger version of it, but I hope he is.

      The experiment is a little more complicated than how you make it out to be. At the time in Earth's history that Miller and Bada are pointing to, the atmosphere was much different from today's atmosphere. There were different levels of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other gases, so they would create an atmosphere similar to it. Then they would have to adjust for the gases that were being spewed out of the volcano so they can really match gaseous profile of early Earth. What may have been a random act billions of years ago will now have to be carefully constructed and controlled by us mere humans.

    • 3 years ago
  • UrbanGypsy
    • 0
      UrbanGypsy  
    • J_Jammer:

      About amino acids actually forming proteins, I hope you read the second half of the post, which already discussed this:

      "Interestingly, other studies conducted by the late famous biochemist Sidney W. Fox found that amino acids join together when exposed to dry heat, that amino acids collected in shallow puddles along the rocky shore, and the heat of the sun caused them to form proteinoids."

      Its actually far from impossible... because it has been proven already.

    • 3 years ago
  • purplefox
  • ColdWorld
    • 0
      ColdWorld  

    • To quote Urban Gypsy: "I can hear the creationists screaming in frustration". I can also hear some fear and rejection in that scream. I soon see this astonishing and very credible theory being childishly refuted by the ( we think who we call God is) Right.

    • 3 years ago
  • UrbanGypsy
  • numinant
  • ColdWorld
  • waseem_nu
    • 0
      waseem_nu  

    • The book of Muslims called "Holy Quran" says following about origin of life.
      Note: Holy Quran is about 1400 years old book.

      Sura 15 - Al-Hijr [Al-Hijr, Stoneland, Rocky City] Verse 26-26:
      26. We created man from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape;

      Sura 32 - As-Sajda [The Prostration, Worship, Adoration] Verse 7-8:
      7. He Who has made everything which He has created most good: He began the creation of man with (nothing more than) clay,
      8. And made his progeny from a quintessence of the nature of a fluid despised:

      Sura 71 - Nooh [Noah] Verse 13-17:
      13. "'What is the matter with you, that ye place not your hope for kindness and long-suffering in Allah,-
      14. "'Seeing that it is He that has created you in diverse stages?
      15. "'See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another,
      16. "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?
      17. "'And Allah has produced you from the earth growing (gradually),

      Sura 21 - Al-Anbiya [The Prophets] Verse 30-30:
      30. Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?

    • 3 years ago
  • jonbrooks
  • drgutman
  • thepatient
  • UrbanGypsy
  • outtheinside
  • CalgarC
  • InformedTexan
  • abbym0308
    • 0
      abbym0308  

    • I hope that's true. That just sounds like such an awesome way to come into existence.

      How'd you get here? Oh you know, volcanic lightning. You?

    • 3 years ago
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