Huh? They’re at it again. Refusing to do their research on what’s already been done, then declaring something I learned in grade school or junior high as “news.” Piffle…
Synopsis: in the early Earth environment (say 4.5 billion years ago maybe, as current guessed), the atmosphere would have been mostly methane, amonia, carbon dioxide and other such exciting compounds, with lots of heat and lightening activity and other strange interchanges going on. Under such conditions it turns out that amino acids (precursors of proteins and other groovy biological compounds) spontaneously form. This was hailed, back in the early 60’s as ground breaking “proof” that life evolved on Earth and even as to how it happened. Back in the 60’s. Now here’s a news release citing it as a new idea.
The only saving moment in this “report” is that they bring in the controversy over whether it was cloud-to-ground lightening activity or cloud-to-cloud activity that did it.
<Sigh>
Gosh… a 70 year old experiment repeated as new. Can not say I’m impressed.
70 years later… an argument over what kind of lightening did it?
Come on Guys! That’s just statistics. Of course it was cloud-to-ground, as that’s going to have been (probably) at least 10,000 to 1 in occurrence over cloud-to-cloud, so of course it was “more likely.” But, why one or the other? How about both were part of that environment? As they were.
The main flaw here is what it always was with this experiment: nothing ever happens with the aminos that are created in these events. They just sit there. They don’t do anything, don’t exhibit any behaviors at all. This “explanation” explains nothing. This was always the flaw in the discussions about this experiment. I looked into it as a teenager (we even recreated it in 8th grade science) and eventually I came up with, “well… humph. So what?” And that’s still pretty much where I am with it. It suggests, only, but explains very little, except that organic molecules are easy and even inevitable(1). But an understanding of carbon implies the same thing, without that experiment. Carbon is greedy, in one sense, and that is a behavior you can depend on, probably since 100K years post-big-bang, if there ever was a big bang, that is(2).
This experiment does suggest that something introduced from outside might have found in the early Earth a rich and ready environment. But a single strand of DNA floating in from outer space (as the panspermia(3) folks would have it) would not be sufficient, for DNA does very little on its own, and can not recreate itself… it needs the mechanisms of a cell to do that. And prokaryotic(4) cells almost certainly came first anyway… no nucleus. So, it wasn’t DNA introduced from outside, unless that came later, when the environment was even more “ready” for such things. (Though it might explain why there are two major types of cells, instead of just one — generally Nature is conservative in such matters.)
The idea of a cell drifting in from outer space is unlikely… as low / zero gravity environment would cause a different kind of “cell” — I believe. In the modeling I’ve done of those pre-planet environments, at least.
Ah! But!! Maybe… maybe a “cell” or cell precursor from the (at this time very old, billions of years probably) solar cloud (the solar system condensed from a cloud of debris tossed off by an earlier or parent star) might have found a niche in the upper atmosphere and set up shop, then gradually mutated to lower altitudes, higher pressure and higher gravity. In the pre-life earth, it’s easy to argue for strong winds and a denser atmosphere, enabling particles to stay afloat in the upper / calmer airs for quite some time. Maybe long enough for some more complicated exchanges to start up.
(There is much to be said about the Cloud that came before the Sun ignited and its light and winds blew the remaining material out into deep space. The Cloud was certainly a very rich environment, but then “climate change” hit, the Sun ignited and nothing was the same again. But that is still billions of years for some interesting things to gotten started, or even to have been brought along from a previous environment. Or… keep going back and keep asking what/why you will finally reach the place of “no one knows.” Just how it is.)
Now with all this, Venus comes to mind, which was in the news again just last week with additional confirmation of life-like compounds in it’s upper atmosphere. Life in the upper atmosphere, for sooth, much like the early Earth may have had. For Venus the upper atmosphere is a far more friendly place than is ground level. Yuck, one might say, to 600 degrees Centigrade and an atmospheric pressue so high it would be like swimming, if you didn’t melt first. Literally. (Glug, glug.)
70 year old experiment “updated.” This is news? Slow science day.
Life in the solar system is almost certainly far older than Earth is. Almost has to be. I think that’s the part they’re missing, these “how did it get started” theorists. They forget that the Earth and all the planets were a relatively late development in the history of the solar system. The solar system was already a rich environment before even the sun ignited for the first time. (Talk about climate change!)
My real point? Young researchers need to start by researching what’s already known!
This is a significant failure in their education, by the way, for which they probably paid 10’s of thousands of dollars in acquiring. Sad…
I have become very tired of these science new-and-improved announcements that are only things I was taught in grade school or knew from other sources by the time I reached high school (yes, long ago). Science is supposed to move forward, not just go around in circles, spraying mud every which way.
So there!
[30]
(1) In fact, organic molecules of many sorts have been detected floating around in deep space, in the spaces between stars or in the depths of various clouds. Oragnic molecules are simply inevitable. That’s what carbon does — it bonds with things. Marvelous element carbon.
(2) That statement “assuming there was a big bang” needs explanation, but I’m not going into detail here. Let’s just say there are other theories beginning to emerge that get around the chicken-and-egg flaws that necessarily arise with a big bang model of the Universe. So big bang might not have actually occured. Or maybe it was just a local phenomenon in a much larger realm. Or… We’re still working on it.
(3) Panspermia, a theory held by many that life has spread through out the universe by physical propagation, being carried from place to place by rocks, solar winds, or maybe even other life. This brings up the possibility that Earth was seeded from outside, either naturally or even artifically.
(4) Principally two types of cells exist on the Earth now, and in the archeological record as we currently know it: prokaryotic and eukaryotic. (Actually, there’s a third now, but it’s a very recent discovery.) They are both in fashion at this time, and serve their various roles in the Earth’s petrie dish.