Your Basic Open Thread
by Joy
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Random Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/your-basic-open-thread/trackback/
September 9th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Thanks very much, Joy. Let me then repeat the question I asked before it disappeared in the memory hole:
Comment by Raevmo — September 9, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
September 9th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Quit yer whining.
Comment by chunkdz — September 9, 2008 @ 8:42 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 7:22 am
I hardly think it approaches the standard set by DaveScot
.
Comment by Alan Fox — September 10, 2008 @ 7:22 am
September 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am
The same team responsible for Thermostability of model protocell membranes is continuing to make progress it seems: Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — September 10, 2008 @ 11:32 am
September 10th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Hi Todd,
Nice to see "front-loaded abiogenesis" research being done.
Comment by Telicmeme — September 10, 2008 @ 11:44 am
September 10th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Hi Telicmeme
What is being front-loaded into the research Todd mentions?
How is is it "front-loaded abiogenesis" research, rather than just abiogenesis?
Do you think the researchers would agree with you that it is front-loaded abiogenesis research (privately, of course, I am sure they would not want to risk the tar-and-feathering that would ensure if they admtted it in public)?
Comment by The Pixie Again — September 10, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Hi TPA,
1) They built ("built" being the operative word) fatty acid molecules that can trap bits of nucleic acids. If these fatty acids can be shown to self-assemble without any intervention, no problem. The conditions were also designed to be favourable to these reactions. Off course it is possible that these conditions where present in prebiotic earth.
2) From here:
Evolution with intelligence?
No I don't think they will agree. But I will agree with them that it is ingenious set up and wish them the best off luck.
Comment by Telicmeme — September 10, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Those are not equivalent sentences. Two differences:
* Built molecules vs. built protocells.
* Built as a verb vs. built as an adjective.
Fatty acids are simple amphiphilic molecules and *spontaneously* assemble into vesicles, which then grow in the presence of micelles. This process is catalyzed by the very same montmorillonite substrate that has been shown to catalyze the assembly of nucleic acid sequences. Interestingly, vesicles which contain RNA grow at the expense of vesicles lacking RNA.
Szostak and his team have also shown that random RNA sequences can exhibit biologically relevant functions that will 'evolve' through repeated bouts of selection and replication, including enzymatic activity associated with autocatalysis.
Comment by Zachriel — September 10, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Zachriel,
I might have misunderstood the "built"-meaning as it was intended in the article. My understanding of the situation is that they added the amphiphilic molecules (fatty acids) first in order to spontaneously grow micelles, and then added RNA. Is this correct?
Another question is why do they add RNA? Why not add ribose and all the other possible sugar formations, phosphate and a sundry of nucleotides to see what happens? Who knows, maybe a completely different genetic code arises first?
Comment by Telicmeme — September 10, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Minimal self-replicating systems
Andrew Robertson, Andrew J. Sinclair and Douglas Philp
Chem. Soc. Rev., 2000, 29, 141 – 152.
Examples of chemical systems capable of templating and catalysing their own synthesis—self-replicating systems—have begun to appear in the chemical literature over the last 15 years. For the biologist, these systems represent a link with the origin of life—their study can shed light on prebiotic chemical evolution. However, for the synthetic chemist, they represent the ultimate synthetic machine, capable of templating the production of a large number of perfect copies of themselves from a single original molecule. In this Review, we describe the design and synthesis of synthetic minimal replicating systems and provide a general overview and critique of the field. [My emphasis.]
(Online 08/12/08. Look for it yourself if you’re interested.)
And look at these guys! Could you be any geekier? They don’t look old enough to shave! I have more hair growing out of my ears than these guys have on their, uh… chins. Isn’t science “R-rated”?
Comment by Rock — September 10, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Fatty acids have a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail. If we disperse them in an aqueous solution, they'll arrange themselves into tiny droplets called a colloid. If we add certain types of clay, they will form into vesicles, like soap bubbles. Now, if this clay contains RNA, then when the vesicles form, they will contain RNA. Other research have shown that some of the same naturally occurring clays can catalyze the formation of RNA sequences.
To see what would happen.
I'm sure you could.
Abiogenetic researchers are trying to understand events that happened billions of years ago in oceans that no longer exist. They can't possibly fund a sterile petri dish the size of the Atlantic, add a trillion tons of organic compounds, wait for a few hundred thousand years, tweak the mixture, and try again.
What they can do is examine a very small part of the problem. So, one experiment might examine various natural catalysts on nucleotides, another how nucleotides can spur the synthesis of fatty acids, still another how vesicles might form and grow.
The science is still very tentative, but these experiments have been very fruitful and interesting. RNA evolution is now being used for medical purposes, as well as confirming basic understandings of how these mechanisms evolve and how they may have formed originally.
Comment by Zachriel — September 10, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
For Heddle: NASCAR Coach Reveals Winning Strategy: 'Drive Fast'
If it ain't left, it ain't right!
Comment by Rob R. — September 10, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
September 10th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Hi all, sorry I was away. Thanks for the open thread — I'll use it to answer a couple of questions I was asked a while back, in case those folks are still curious.
In the Wise Sage thread, I talked about how I relate MN to my experience-based expectations, and Pez then asked whether I have similar expectations for OOL, origin of the universe, consciousness, anthropic fine tuning. For OOL and perhaps consciousness, I'd say I have an expectation that these things can be naturalistically explained. Origin of the universe and fine tuning feel different to me, since neither seems explainable in the same sense that biological phenomena are explainable. So I don't have an expectation of naturalistic explanation, though I don't have a strongly opposite sense either.
I hope I've made it clear that these aren't hypotheses or convictions or even reasoned positions. They're experience-based expectations. I know that a human can be divinely conceived, but I don't expect it. I assume that all humans, with a single exception, have been conceived through mechanisms outlined by developmental biologists.
In the same thread, Thought Provoker asked me what I think of NOMA. As a framework for understanding the relationship between science and faith, I think it is a failure, partly because miracles seem to be an obvious breach of the boundary, but mostly because my model of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural is very different from Gould's picture of the scientific and the "religious." Science, in my view, studies the natural world, which is a subset of the whole shebang (=God + creation). The natural world doesn't separately abut the whole shebang. It's embedded within it. If "religion" is the attempt by Christians to faithfully understand God and His creation, then science isn't separate at all — it's part of the whole. Big difference, to me.
But I liked NOMA as a statement, by one person (Gould), of respect for wisdom and for belief, even though he was not a believer. His model isn't very good, but the goals (wisdom, peace, respect) were.
Comment by SteveMatheson — September 10, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
September 11th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Open thread? Kewl. Who else Likes Corner Gas?
Comment by kornbelt888 — September 11, 2008 @ 12:16 am
September 11th, 2008 at 12:26 am
You really think your unitary consciousness is merely the product of the objects currently known to biologists and physicists? Oh, OK.
That's find and dandy. But it's a mere belief. No science at all.
Comment by kornbelt888 — September 11, 2008 @ 12:26 am
September 11th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Let me expand on this a bit. Why that experiment rather than some other?
Since the discovery of autocatalytic RNA, it's been theorized that at one time life consisted in part of self-replicating RNA (or similar polymer). However, it's been recognized that this requires some sort of segregating membrane. Hence, the hypothesis is that proto-cells were made of lipid vesicles containing RNA polymers. Naturally occurring clays catalyze both the production of nucleotide oligomers and the formation of vesicles.
In other words, the RNA World Hypothesis makes empirical predictions that have led to new discoveries. That's why they put RNA in a vesicle to see what it would do. And it caused the vesicle to grow at the expense of those vesicles without RNA. This could lead to natural vesicle division.
This is far from a complete theory, but the RNA World Hypothesis has been very fruitful and has led to new understandings of a number of related processes associated with abiogenesis. That's why they added RNA. To see what would happen.
Comment by Zachriel — September 11, 2008 @ 9:19 am
September 11th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
kornbelt–
No, that's not what I wrote. The context was MN and what I've referred to as expectation. It's a shame that you typed your "response" without taking the time to consider what I actually wrote.
I am not committed to a particular stance regarding explanations of consciousness. Re-reading what I wrote, I think that's pretty clear.
Comment by SteveMatheson — September 11, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
September 15th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
SteveMatheson,
Sorry.
Comment by kornbelt888 — September 15, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
September 16th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Corner Gas!
Kornbelt, you aren't a Canuck are you?
Dog River is fictional (d'uh) but would be my old stomping grounds if it really existed.
Davis rocks … all riiight!
Comment by Pez — September 16, 2008 @ 12:53 am