Index 
Science (origin of life)
Origin of Life: It seems in one sense Life is the Promethean gift – fire. But a long-burning fire, mostly fueled by the oxidation of carbon and hydrogen from high energy states (glucose) to lower energy states (CO2, H2O). That fire is life’s most fundamental, general, abstract, reduced, shared characteristic. It must have begun there, in the murk. Quickly phosphate joined the reaction as a carrier of liberated energy away from the fire, switching easily between tri-valent and lower energy bi-valent phosphorus in the presence of nurturing oxygen, nurturing for both the fire and the transfer. Phosphate or some energy transfer reaction would tend to diffuse spherically from the fire. Random motion of excited particles seems to be conducive to construction of a shell, an enclosure for the fire, which then isn’t extinguished so soon. The new constructed, perhaps still unconnected ions containing the transferred energy; either attracting more “carbon fuel” or preventing other oxygen getters from getting near the source of the fire (the center of the diffusion “sphere”). Maybe some environments in hot or cold water or probably warm mud. Even back then warm mud would have a great reservoir of “needed” chemical constituents that could be used for attracting or repulsing other things, able to be “freed” from surfaces of the clays, probably derived from mafic rocks. Actually this might be occurring in lots of nearby places, maybe even now, but bacteria or some such goggle it up before it can spread eventually becoming mitochondria, their membranes being the but a step to cell walls, the next layer of shells (semi-permeable membranes), right up to cars, houses, and consciousness. Mitochondrial membranes are just crenulated spheres which for various and sundry causes have envaginated into a large spherical surface packed into a quite small volume. Now, by chance and by golly, one energy “pocket happens” between two amino acids, each homogenously diffused (concentrated) in the area, probably long-lived enough to be randomly distributed, longer than the fire’s “milliseconds” at most. Our amino acids, just the two, are available – ZAP – the two are linked, they can’t help it, the presence of electrical fields in a specific range of ever-changing geometries, including those effected by heat, make the link inevitable. This new, linked amino acid, or proto-protein, may be more or less hydrophobic than its predecessors – and other electrical peculiarities. If it so happens that this new molecule, made possible by the heat of the fire, preferentially tolerates glucose or its predecessors, for example. The energy diffusion shell around the “fire” creates a tiny, inconsequential part of an “energy sphere” that is favorable to the “fire”. Since these two hitherto unlinked amino acid molecules are homogenously distributed and energy is an inverse-square function, the likelihood of the new molecule (protein) centers closer to the fire. If the new molecule is more favorable to the fire than other randomly ZAPPED wandering electrical (electron) givers and takers, and if concentrations of the molecules is relative high, then a “cloud-like” semi-permeable membrane may be inevitable about a chemical energy source, in turn both fostering the fire and fostering the favorable “membrane cloud”. But along comes the slightest current in the fluid and chases the cloud away, back into the obscure chaos of homogeneity. (The clays would reduce this effect) But once in a while, or perhaps often, such “new” molecules perchance have “sticky” electrical ends, and since they are in relative abundance, they will stick to each other probabalitistcally perhaps even resisting the forces of diffusion, so sticking close to the “fire”. First the fire, then the shells, then the brain (DNA). Life then perhaps is but a series of ever more complex and protective – nurturing shells or semi-permeable membranes, permeable to nutrients not to others. A car protects the fire with a steel suit of armor, nurtures by bringing food, etc. within my reach feeding the fires within my trillions of mitochondria. Plus I love to drive, so it nurtures my soul as well. If life started something like that, a chance string of inevitable chemical reactions under just the right conditions, then why did it just happen once? Why isn’t is occurring now? Maybe it is, but as indicated above, maybe this “proto’ life is gobbled up by predatory “life” already established. |