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Title: The mystery of life solved? Study reveals how primordial DNA may have spontaneously appeared 4 billion years ago
Source:
Daily Mail Online
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet ... eared-4-billion-years-ago.html
Published: Apr 7, 2015
Author: Ellie Zolfagharifard
Post Date: 2015-04-07 17:07:47 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 2310
Comments: 9
Scientists believe life on Earth began evolving around 3.8 billion years ago. But while they have been able to put a date on when life appeared, they are still far from knowing how it appeared. Now researchers in the US and Italy say they have evidence that DNA-like fragments may have come with 'instructions' that guided their growth into complex life forms 4 billion years ago. Scroll down for video Scientists believe life on Earth began evolving around 3.8 billion years ago, but they are still far from knowing how it appeared. Now researchers in the US and Italy say they have evidence that DNA-like fragments may have come with 'instructions' that guided their growth into complex life forms 4 billion years ago The researchers believe these fragments used their innate self-evolving abilities to grow into repeated chemical chains long enough to evolve into primitive life. The study, by the University of Milan and University of Colorado Boulder, is based on a discovery in the 1980s that RNA can chemically alter its own structure. RNA is similar to DNA, and carries out a number of jobs in our cells, including acting as an on-and-off switch for some genes. Scientists believe that when life was in its early stages, RNA played a leading role in creating complex organisms before DNA and proteins were developed. Many origin-of-life researchers say that RNA chains are too specialised to have been created as a product of random chemical reactions. The new study, however, claims to provide an alternative theory by arguing primordial DNA-like fragments evolved in this way instead. The researchers found the self-assembly of DNA fragments just a few nanometres in length have the ability to drive the formation of chemical bonds. These connect together short DNA chains to form long ones, without the need for a separate biological process. The image shows a droplet of condensed nano-DNA and within it smaller drops of its liquid crystal phase which show up in polarised light on the left. The liquid crystal droplets act as 'micro-reactors' where short DNA can join together into long polymer chains to evolve into more complex life 'Our observations are suggestive of what may have happened on the early Earth when the first DNA-like molecular fragments appeared,' said CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark, a study co-author. The study suggests that the way in which DNA emerged in the early Earth lies in its structural properties and its ability to self-organise. In the pre-RNA world, the spontaneous self-assembly of fragments of nucleic acids – the building block of life - may have acted as a template for their chemical self-assembly. 'The new findings show that in the presence of appropriate chemical conditions, the spontaneous self-assembly of small DNA fragments into stacks of short duplexes greatly favours their binding into longer polymers, thereby providing a pre-RNA route to the RNA world,' added Professor Clark. 
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#1. To: cranky (#0)
Don't you just love it.....
Scientists can't even figure out whether or not eggs are good for us.
We used to be a land where we gave up our lives to protect our freedom. Now we give up our freedom to protect our lives.
Eggs contain cholesterol.
Ha! Stone, we need a like button!
We used to be a land where we gave up our lives to protect our freedom. Now we give up our freedom to protect our lives.
YES!! Finally! Scientists are admitting that DNA is programed! (Oh wait -- or are they trying to say that "DNA-like fragments" have no creator or programmer but themselves?) And then from your link: A new "species", eh?? How exciting for this to occur before 2525. I can actually see Cambridge, Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, and all the major academic "Halls of Science" teaching this theory within a few years.
Don't you just love it..... "Instructions".....yeah, that kind of "scientific advancement" is beautiful. Somewhere at this Italian "research" lab, some scientists are hitting the Sambuca and bong awfully hard...BUT getting paid BIG bucks! Bravo, Professore!
There's nothing wrong with trying to figure out the mechanics of the origins of life, and the notion that life may have arisen on earth spontaneously, nor the prospect that we've evolved from animals causes me no moral or ethical difficulties, as it makes no difference to our spiritual nature and value. Those who say evolution is not a component of life have a steeper hill to climb, than evolutionists, in my view, in explaining the state of the planet today. I.e. were all life forms created at once, and since that time, species such as dinosaurs dying off one by one, or are new life forms created on an ongoing basis to replenish the earth? I'm not opposed to Intelligent design playing a role. In fact I believe Intelligent design does play a role in biology, but evolution may also play a role. Combo of the two. But I would side with the currently held scientific notion that the earth is as old as the universe is big, and that life has been on the earth for nearly as long.
Well, in the 1970's government "scientists" told us that eggs were bad. Now we know that eggs whites are full of protein and eggs yolks and full of Selenium (an anti-oxidant that helps fight cancer). The 1970's government "scientists" also told us to stuff our faces with carbohydrates, which have turned America into a country of tubalards. Lesson learned -- don't listen to government "scientists".
fragments may have come with 'instructions'
#2. To: patriot wes, cranky (#1)
#3. To: cranky (#0)
#4. To: We The People (#3)
Scientists can't even figure out whether or not eggs are good for us.
And cholesterol may be bad for us.
Even though most of our brains consist of cholesterol.
You don't want to suffer from 'Obese Brain Syndrome' -
do you fathead? LOL. So the scientists must be right.
Whatever they say - today. If they say something different
tomorrow, they'll be right then too.
#5. To: Chuck_Wagon (#4)
#6. To: cranky, cranko, jwpegler (#0)
Scientists say early DNA-like fragments guided their own growth
Are we evolving into a NEW type of human? 'Different' species will have evolved by 2050, scientist claims
#7. To: patriot wes (#1)
(fragments may have come with 'instructions')
#8. To: cranky (#0)
#9. To: We The People (#3)
(Edited)
Scientists can't even figure out whether or not eggs are good for us.
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