CREATING life in the primordial soup may have been easier than we thought. Two essential elements of RNA have finally been made from scratch, under conditions similar to those that likely prevailed during the dawn of life.
The question of how a molecule capable of storing genetic information – even DNA’s simpler cousin RNA – could ever have arisen spontaneously in the primordial cooking pot has perplexed scientists for decades. RNA consists of a long chain composed of four different types of ribonucleotides, which each consist of a nitrogenous base, a sugar and a phosphate.
Most people assumed that these three components first formed separately, and then combined to make the ribonucleotides. The only trouble was that it seemed impossible that two of the four bases with particularly unwieldy chemistry ever reacted spontaneously with the sugar.
To tackle this problem, John Sutherland from the University of Manchester, UK, tried to work out a new recipe for RNA that gets by without forcing isolated bases and sugar molecules to react. His team experimented by cooking up ribonucleotides from five small molecules thought to be present in the primordial soup. “We started with the same building blocks as others, but take a different route,” Sutherland says.
Found by Misanthropic Scott on Cage Match.
Wow. So the recipe is out! Now what?
Alt headline:
Intelligent Designers create life.
/ducks
Now what? Now we create the flying monkey-men and take over the world!
#2 – FUNNY! ;-
ahem…even though point was they DIDN’T create it, but ‘created’ a research paper showing how the chemicals could spontaneously combine without a magical sky being. Scientists have been able to “manually” combine RNA for ages, that’s nothing new.
Or maybe Odin, Jehovah or the Titans created the Earth…JUST as likely I suppose (giggle).
My god can beat up YOUR god! đ
That’s bad math. If they can sit there in their suits and use tools to do this, who made their chairs, clothes and tools? Oh yeah…
Would it not be interesting if another life form came to earth and started the whole thing? In theory it appears just as likely as anything else. It is interesting how science has started to challenge biblical teachings.
It would make sense considering some ancient drawings indicating spacecraft visiting earth thousands of years ago. I guess it’s what you believe. But it’s hard to beat science.
Scientists “create” life. How does this disprove creation? Did the scientists who buit the bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki disprove fire and brimstone?
@7
Nothing can disprove your believes.
RNA != life. RNA is just the basic molecules needed to transmit information between cells. And, even if it is possible for RNA to spontaneously happen, the chances of it happening is still astronomical. Which doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen that way.
Also, this interesting tidbit: “His team experimented by cooking up ribonucleotides from five small molecules thought to be present in the primordial soup.” How do we know what was present in the primordial soup?
I’m not going to sit here and demand that everyone believe some sort of omnipotent creator created the universe and everything in it, but surely that’s just as plausible an explanation as things randomly creating themselves, especially when numerous other tenets of science have proven that systems generally devolve into chaos rather than evolve into order, right?
You seriously call any of this order?
#9 “How do we know what was present in the primordial soup?”
I get mine from Campbells.
This doesn’t seem that impressive. I sounds like the scientists helped the process along in order to get this to happen. Many “primordial soup” experiments have been done before, and failed to produce necessary complex molecules. So even if you can synthesize RNA from certain simpler molecules, the way they did it may not occur by itself, or may be extremely, extremely unlikely. As #9 said, RNA is not equal to life. Just having a little RNA floating around in the primordial soup probably wouldn’t mean anything.
#8
I think that your “believes” about how to spell beliefs are wrong.
“Science Creates Life; Religion Takes a Hit”
Umm, no. Read the research. No life was created. Fail.
The Big Bang needed a “Big Banger”. You can’t get around that without throwing out logic.
You can’t disprove my statement without using logic.
Did the scientist create the elements used in the experiment to create life, or did he/she just use some matter that was already around?
# 15 nonee said, “Did the scientist create the elements used in the experiment to create life,…”
Mute point, there was no life created.
How does this supposed discovery constitute a “hit” on religion? The secularists among God’s children are so eager to deny His existence and His design.
As He has said, This is my work and my glory, to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man.
And here are a couple of His children playing about with a few of His building blocks and you now claim that belief in Him and what He has done has taken a “hit”.
Pathetic.
God created RNA, obviously.
Seriously, this doesn’t threaten my religion at all. Only some expressions of religion are tied to a literal creation story. Mine isn’t.
If the religious weren’t so stupid they would just teach that evolution is part of God’s plan. They are stupid, however, and insist God perform his miracles to their own specifications, which are, redundantly, stupid.
Alfred, you fail to understand the scientific method yet again. If it’s possible that life developed spontaneously, then it’s FAR more likely than some fantastical legend. This article may not prove it was possible, but it’s yet another step, of hundreds, in that direction. You got any alternate scientific proof besides a fantastical legend? One condition: a lack of understanding in no way constitutes proof.
#15 “The Big Bang needed a âBig Bangerâ. You canât get around that without throwing out logic.”
Where did God come from? You canât get around that without throwing out logic.
+1 For science, this is great stuff.
#17 Rich is correct in every respect to a Christian that understands the need for a savior. To the rest of the world His world will be foolishness to them.
#15 is correct to use logic.
To put it in a way that an atheist will understand:
This is not a “hit” to religion. Both Subway and Quizno’s can make a ham sandwich. The results of the study are not mutually exclusive.
The question is who made the Ham.
You can’t prove a hypothesis, only disprove one.
@Joe
You don’t need logic when you use quantum mechanics and when the universe was as small as an atom quantum mechanics was a big factor.
You guys need to work on your crotch-grabber titles.
Should read: Science creates life, religion takes it.
Joe,
You hit it on the head, IMHO. Both atheism and religion demands a leap of faith.
Either you believe God or a god-like quantity of energy came outta nowhere.
# 24 Improbus said, “You donât need logic when you use quantum mechanics and when the universe was as small as an atom quantum mechanics was a big factor.”
You still have the elephants standing on turtles problem with Q.M…
A little salt and pepper, maybe garlic, primordial ooze might taste like chicken soup.
It’s ALIVE!!!
# 1 Dallas said,
Wow. So the recipe is out! Now what?
Next, God.. excuse me, the ‘intelligent designer’ will sue for patent infringement.
J/P=?
“..when asked to describe their formula, scientists said it has a taste similar to chicken…”