• ORIGIN OF LIFE?

    From Charles Pierson@1:106/127 to All on Fri Jan 1 02:25:18 2021
    Original article :

    https://scitechdaily.com/discovery-supports-a-surprising-new-view-of-how-life-o n-earth-originated/




    Discovery Supports a Surprising New View of How Life on Earth Originated TOPICS:DNAGeneticsPopularRNAScripps Research Institute
    By SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE DECEMBER 28, 2020

    Newly described chemical reaction could have assembled DNA building blocks before life forms and their enzymes existed.

    Discovery boosts theory that life on our planet arose from RNA-DNA mix. Chemists at Scripps Research have made a discovery that supports a surprising new view of how life originated on our planet.

    In a study published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, they demonstrated that a simple compound called diamidophosphate (DAP), which was plausibly present on Earth before life arose, could have chemically knitted together tiny DNA building blocks called deoxynucleosides into strands of primordial DNA.

    The finding is the latest in a series of discoveries, over the past several years, pointing to the possibility that DNA and its close chemical cousin RNA arose together as products of similar chemical reactions, and that the first self-replicating molecules — the first life forms on Earth — were mixes
    of the two.


    The discovery may also lead to new practical applications in chemistry and biology, but its main significance is that it addresses the age-old question
    of how life on Earth first arose. In particular, it paves the way for more extensive studies of how self-replicating DNA-RNA mixes could have evolved
    and spread on the primordial Earth and ultimately seeded the more mature biology of modern organisms.

    “This finding is an important step toward the development of a detailed chemical model of how the first life forms originated on Earth,” says study senior author Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research.

    The finding also nudges the field of origin-of-life chemistry away from the hypothesis that has dominated it in recent decades: The “RNA World” hypothesis posits that the first replicators were RNA-based, and that DNA
    arose only later as a product of RNA life forms.

    Is RNA too sticky?
    Krishnamurthy and others have doubted the RNA World hypothesis in part
    because RNA molecules may simply have been too “sticky” to serve as the first self-replicators.

    A strand of RNA can attract other individual RNA building blocks, which stick to it to form a sort of mirror-image strand — each building block in the
    new strand binding to its complementary building block on the original, “template” strand. If the new strand can detach from the template strand, and, by the same process, start templating other new strands, then it has achieved the feat of self-replication that underlies life.

    But while RNA strands may be good at templating complementary strands, they
    are not so good at separating from these strands. Modern organisms make
    enzymes that can force twinned strands of RNA — or DNA — to go their separate ways, thus enabling replication, but it is unclear how this could
    have been done in a world where enzymes didn’t yet exist.

    A chimeric workaround
    Krishnamurthy and colleagues have shown in recent studies that “chimeric” molecular strands that are part DNA and part RNA may have been able to get around this problem, because they can template complementary strands in a less-sticky way that permits them to separate relatively easily.

    The chemists also have shown in widely cited papers in the past few years
    that the simple ribonucleoside and deoxynucleoside building blocks, of RNA
    and DNA respectively, could have arisen under very similar chemical
    conditions on the early Earth.

    Moreover, in 2017 they reported that the organic compound DAP could have
    played the crucial role of modifying ribonucleosides and stringing them together into the first RNA strands. The new study shows that DAP under
    similar conditions could have done the same for DNA.

    “We found, to our surprise, that using DAP to react with deoxynucleosides works better when the deoxynucleosides are not all the same but are instead mixes of different DNA ‘letters’ such as A and T, or G and C, like real DNA,” says first author Eddy Jiménez, PhD, a postdoctoral research
    associate in the Krishnamurthy lab.

    “Now that we understand better how a primordial chemistry could have made
    the first RNAs and DNAs, we can start using it on mixes of ribonucleoside and deoxynucleoside building blocks to see what chimeric molecules are formed — and whether they can self-replicate and evolve,” Krishnamurthy says.

    He notes that the work may also have broad practical applications. The artificial synthesis of DNA and RNA — for example in the “PCR”
    technique that underlies COVID-19 tests — amounts to a vast global
    business, but depends on enzymes that are relatively fragile and thus have
    many limitations. Robust, enzyme-free chemical methods for making DNA and RNA may end up being more attractive in many contexts, Krishnamurthy says.

    Reference: “Prebiotic Phosphorylation and Concomitant Oligomerization of Deoxynucleosides to form DNA” by Eddy Jiménez, Clémentine Gibard and Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, 15 December 2020, Angewandte Chemie.
    DOI: 10.1002/anie.202015910

    Funding was provided by the Simons Foundation.

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  • From George Pope@1:153/757 to All on Sun Feb 27 17:40:48 2022
    Original article :
    https://scitechdaily.com/discovery-supports-a-surprising-new-view-of-how-life-
    n-earth-originated/
    Discovery Supports a Surprising New View of How Life on Earth Originated TOPICS:DNAGeneticsPopularRNAScripps Research Institute
    By SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE DECEMBER 28, 2020
    Newly described chemical reaction could have assembled DNA building blocks before life forms and their enzymes existed.
    Discovery boosts theory that life on our planet arose from RNA-DNA mix.

    Okay, sounds interesting -- now why did this new life develop a need to copy itself? Why is DNA so keen on making newly mixed sets of genes?

    Wgt does every living thing on Earth appear to have the Genetic Mandate?

    Of course, if it didn't, the question would be moot, as we'd be just another planet, cold(well, temperate due to our position/distance in Sol's family) & lifeless. . .

    Of course, I'm satisfied that it went as it did, as I'm no Nihilist.

    One has to wonder how dead elements & molecules became alive, questing, reacting, & thinking.. .

    Personally, I believe the universe planned it thusly & here we are.

    If an odd mix of atoms can make a human brain capable of all it can do, when each atom is mostly empty space(ether), kind of like our solar system -- so why couldn't our solar system be one atom in a greater level of existence?

    That's one alternative way of thinking, or how about -- instead of thibking solid is real, because we feel solid, even though we know we are mostly ether, why can't the ether & other empty space in the universe itself have bonded togwether & became a giant brain/personality?

    The entre universe is very simply H (1); every other element was formed by the fusion of Hydrogen atoms, first into Helum, then into heavier elements when these, too, became smashed into each other & others in a supernova.

    So your carbon was originally, ultimately, 6 Hydrogen atoms; you're just a bunch of ones connecting & held together via various gravity-like forces.

    & we feel we are such hot shots in mental capabilities -- how much more so would a universe-sized Being be?

    This Universe predated us infinitely.

    Wheb the universewas compressed into One, all the universe was present in that single infinitely massive proton (it was One until It chose to restart a more dynamic universe, which, per Higgs, is still connected as if it were still that singular pre-Bang "One.")

    Infinity must get boring, that's what I think, so creating a new universe with a one degree difference in temperature or a 0.0000003% change in spin speed of one of the initial Hydrogen protons.

    Becauseeverything else beforethat in like incrimemys jad been done before, possibly; so let's see how life evolves this time, with the occasional bits of help at times, because all living thinking creatures discover it is fun to play with one's parts, to see what'll happen.

    We chewed on our toes as infants, so do pupies & kittens,but mammals don't make uypo an infinite cosmos that is comprised of smaller, somewhat similar life forms (unless you count bacteria, which we may well can)

    We are now playing with the bacteria that lives on us, to see how we can affect it's behaviour & properties.

    Whuy wouldb't Universe do the same at various points.

    Nobody truly gets(thankfully) how long Eternity is. Look at what we do in our more limited life spans, as individualos,& as aspecies!

    Some idiot thought it'd be interesting to see if the could combine a deadly bat vaccine with the extremely spreadable & mutatable coold virus, & here we have Covid-19

    I'm all right with experimenting, but not when these experiments can so easily kill millions or billions.

    There are ways to test hypotheseses in a more controlled & limited manner, but only the most intelligent have thwe mettle to figure this out & actually put it into practice.

    Laziness (&/or Greed) gets us into today's pandemic me

    Life as a universal concept/process/existence will continue, absorbing every nuance of detail its evolved cosmos has produced for His observation.

    You are as material to the Universe as a single one of the trillion bacteria on your skin is to you.

    Don't sweat it -- work on the big picture, if you're a scientist/seeker.

    Personally, my vision & mission is to make life better for aas many othersas I can, as well as living long enough to see how that changes societies & Eart's rtelationship wikth the One.

    Rea inhto this as ytou wilt; I had hno intentions in writing as I did -- I was inspired by the echo's name & the above link, & let my mind explore outwards on the questions of understanding life as a concept, first, then in how it relates to me & you.

    Reply however you feel moved; Fidonet's not in a position to be overly rigid as to content & topics.

    If you'd rather take this to email, I'm at Cyberpope67@yahoo.com

    I'm going to change the addressee to ALL, putting Charles Pierson in the subject, so he can track the thread he started by addressing ALL.

    |<+]::-{)} <-- official cyberpopicon of the Cyberpope(me!) Not a religious thing - my name is Pope & I'm in Cyberspace...

    --- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-5
    * Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)