New 2021 Theory Shows How Life On Earth Was Formed

 

the earth is over 4.5 billion years old  and the truth is that although we'd like  to think so we actually don't know all  that much about it  how life sprang forth from the organic  compound rich primordial ooze is best  guess  and a hotly contested topic but with the  new year comes a new theory showing how  life on earth was formed  welcome to fact nominal today we're  breaking new ground with biogenesis  in the new 2021 theory that shows how  life on earth was formed  the earliest record of life the earliest  evidence of life we have comes in the  form of fossilized mats of cyanobacteria  called  stromatolites this evidence was found in  greenland and is around 3.7 billion  years old  but the kicker is that even though the  bacteria are ancient  they're already biologically complex  they have cell walls protecting their  dna  hinting that there are still life forms  that existed way earlier on in the  fossil record  yet to be discovered these stromatolite  mats are still present today  even after so much time has elapsed in  the world heritage listed shark bay area  of western australia  cyanobacteria are still happily living  just as they did billions of years ago  this gives rise to the idea that life  must have appeared the moment the  earth's climate and  environment could support it still in  western australia and locally mined  primeval zircon rocks  contain high amounts of a form of carbon  associated with biological processes  in other words the gas contained within  these 4.1 billion year old minerals  is evidence life was flourishing even  then  we know the when but we still don't  fully understand  the how it requires further  investigation  after all you can expect the fish to  come on up out of the water  and meet the ape halfway down the tree  the original theory this is where it  gets tricky there are multiple theories  that compete with one another to explain  how life came to be on earth  the problem is that it's hard to either  prove or disprove them so no fully  accepted or unified theory exists  to answer such a question once and for  all would fill one of the largest gaps  in scientific understanding and have  implications of the possibility of  finding life elsewhere on alien planet  once life began and was able to  proliferate and diversify  the currently accepted model of  darwinist evolutionary theory comes into  play  from there our understanding is pretty  good it's just the stuff that happened  before that that's a little hazy  panspermia  the simplest explanation could be the  right one  panspermia explores the notion that life  was seeded on this planet from some  other planet  the presence of martian meteorites on  earth is proof that  interplanetary transfer of material is  possible  self-replicating molecules could have  just as easily hitched on one of those  or on a comet from another star system  the electric spark electric sparks can  generate amino acid building blocks and  simple sugars from an atmosphere rich in  water  methane ammonia and hydrogen that's not  unlike the atmosphere of primordial  earth  with the benefit of great big lightning  strikes driving the reaction  sadly the earth was relatively hydrogen  poor at this time  which throws this theory out the window  made from clay no it's not quite  creationism but the first molecules of  life could have been forged in clay  an abundance of organic compounds  concentrated within the clay  could have been organized into the dna  structure we see now  by mineral crystals before gaining the  eventual ability to self-replicate  deep sea vents life may have sprung from  the geothermal vents present  at the bottom of deep ocean trenches the  large surface area of the surrounding  rock  may have concentrated the hydrogen-rich  materials spewed out the vent with heat  providing the catalyst for critical dna  life-forming reactions  the chill literally the complete  opposite  a sun that was less luminous than it is  now could have allowed the formation of  a sheet of ice  hundreds of feet thick to form on top of  the oceans  this dense layer may have protected  organic compounds from ultraviolet light  and cosmic ray bombardment  and combined with the cold allowed the  organic compounds to survive long enough  to form dna  metabolism first instead of developing  from complex molecules like  rna and dna life may have actually  developed from the  interactions of much smaller molecules  this is known as the  metabolism first theory covalent bonds  between organic compounds  may have formed something similar to  what we would call a cell membrane  over time more complex modules could  have formed that made this rudimentary  cell wall  better and better around the same time  prebiotic auto catalytic sets  could have been undergoing a darwinism  of their own they're simply cyclical  chemical reactions that had one of two  outcomes  obviously whichever outcome prospered  the propagation of more reactions  was the dominant outcome metabolism and  energy generation may have driven the  formation of life  as the combination of cell wall like  molecules and energy  prebiotic auto-catalytic sets would have  resembled something akin to a modern-day  cell  only on a much basic level rna world  this is currently the most favored  theory and names rna or ribonucleic acid  as the first identifiable molecule  responsible for life on earth  the theory is simple we look at how a  cell replicates now  and we have our answer dna needs  proteins  in order to form and proteins need dna  in order to form  so how could they have formed without  each other rna stores this information  from the dna  accumulates building blocks and forms  the protein it's the middleman and  without it we don't have dna replication  the question still remains how rna was  formed in the first place however  it's thought that the molecule  spontaneously formed on earth as a freak  occurrence  and once formed replicated to form the  basis of life  the rna world theory was developed in  the 1980s  and one that is perhaps the most widely  accepted amongst the scientific  community  genetics first versus metabolism first  this is as easy a question to answer as  what came first the chicken or the egg  no doubt that the modern cell requires a  way to replicate the genetic information  required to make its required proteins  but also  it needs a metabolic pathway in order to  generate energy to fuel its function  up until this year it's been a hot topic  of debate with compelling arguments  presented on both sides  that is until a new how was suggested  the new how building on the rna world  theory chemists have discovered that a  single compound called  diameter phosphate or dap could have  knitted together  deoxynucleosides the tiny building  blocks of dna  or deoxyribonucleic acid  this dap was present on earth in decent  amounts before we think life arose  and could be its catalyst it's now  thought that both rna and dna  arose together as products of similar  chemical reactions  the first self-replicating molecules  which were essentially the first life  forms on earth  were likely mixes of the two proteins  this research paves the way for more  extensive experiments  into how self-replicating dna rna  hybrids could have evolved on primordial  earth and ceded the more mature dna data  storage  and rna messenger system present in more  advanced organisms  including us the idea originated from  doubts in the explanation of the rna  world theory  it's believed that the rna protein  molecules were too sticky and  molecularly reactive  to serve as the first self-replicators  in the human body an rna strand attracts  other rna building blocks  which stick to it to form a mirror image  strand a 180 degree  opposite replicate of the original this  replicate is then free to attract more  rna building blocks in order to create  copies of the original strand  it acts as a messenger to carry the data  of the original protein  the copy has acted as the template for  self-replication of the original rna  strand  the issue is that the messenger rna is  simply too good at templating  complementary strands  and does a poor job of separating from  these strands  modern organisms contain special enzymes  that force the strands to break apart  and go their separate ways after  replication  without the enzymes they would stay  attached indefinitely  so how would rna replicate in a  primordial puddle where these enzymes  don't exist yet  enter the chemeric workaround this newly  published theory explains that molecular  strands that are part rna and part dna  could successfully template  complementary strands for replication in  a much less sticky way  and easily separate after with no  enzymes needed  the dap compound could have just as  easily stitched together  rna and dna building blocks as hybrids  instead of selectively making separate  rna and dna proteins surprisingly dap  reacts to deoxynucleocides  better when they are not all the same  type but a mixture of the a  c g and t letters that denote the four  basic building blocks of life  adenine cytosine guanine and thymine  although this new theory can't be  strictly proven it does  create a new frontier of more robust  methods for synthesizing  rna and dna proteins without the need  for  any fragile enzymes for example the pcr  or polymerase chain reaction technique  used to test for the covid19 virus