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Invisibledblaney
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Registered: 10/03/04
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Origin of DNA
    #5784600 - 06/23/06 06:36 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

My curiosity has been aroused from a thread in P&S. Is anyone familiar with the process through which DNA originally evolved? Or was it placed into existence through 'divine intervention'? :wink:


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"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln


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OfflineDadeMurphy
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: dblaney]
    #5785383 - 06/23/06 10:58 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Prevailing theory (as I learned in bio) goes that:

-Elements/inorganic compounds combined in a reducing atmosphere to form organic molecules (amino acids) because it was thermodynamically favourable (amino acids have been "spontaneously generated" from basic inorganic chemicals - see Miller & Urey (1953).)

-Simple organic molecules polymerized upon dehydration (by heat, ie. on hot clay and iron). According to my bio notes lab experiments have been able to "spontaneously" produce all 20 of the major amino acids, the bases that compose DNA/RNA, sugars, lipids and nucleotide phosphates (eg. ATP).


-RNA emerged as short chains of nucleic acids...self replicating RNA (catalyzed by ribozymal RNA) has been produced abiotically in the lab.

-Self-replicating, self-catalyzing RNA is captured by a semi-permeable membrane of some kind (possibly a lipid based bubble known as a liposome).

-RNA assembles enzymatic proteins and can catalyze more complex reactions. Natural selection can occur on these self-replicating, protein producing, membrane contained pieces of RNA.

-DNA eventually emerges via natural selection (this part of the 'story' was vague or left as unanswered as-of-yet).

-Eventually prokaryotic cells develope. --> then eukaryotes --> then higher organisms.

Sorry if the real question you asked was the part I (and my notes) glossed over!  :crazy:


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Edited by DadeMurphy (06/23/06 11:00 PM)


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Invisibledblaney
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Posts: 7,894
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: DadeMurphy]
    #5786921 - 06/24/06 04:25 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

-DNA eventually emerges via natural selection (this part of the 'story' was vague or left as unanswered as-of-yet).

Yeah this is an intriguing part of the story too!


--------------------
"What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?"

"Belief is a beautiful armor
But makes for the heaviest sword"
- John Mayer

Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin.

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: dblaney]
    #5789103 - 06/25/06 10:47 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

The specific mechanism of the origin of life on earth isn't known. However, it has been shown that amino acids can self-synthesis given the right conditions.

Chemists Stanley Miller's and Harold Urey's famous experiment in 1953 put water, methane, hydrogen, and ammonia in a closed, sterile environment with an electric spark to simulate lightning.

After a few days they analyzed the contents of the experiment and found that amino acids, the critical organic molecules essential to life, had appeared by themselves. The four carbon chemical bonds in the methane had broken free and rearranged themselves into the building blocks of life.

This happened without the benefit of a designer, alien, creator, or anything else besides water, methane, hydrogen, ammonia and a spark.

Although it is now believed that the Earth's atmosphere at the time of abiogenesis did not contain enough carbon or free nitrogen for this to have been the synthetic route to the first organism, it nevertheless clearly established that a natural processes could have produced the first life on Earth and more recent experiments confirm this.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


Edited by Diploid (06/25/06 11:08 AM)


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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: Diploid]
    #5789380 - 06/25/06 01:06 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

How does entropy get thwarted? It is accepted that amino acids can form, but how do we get from a random soup of amino acids to self-replicating structures? The part that goes from a chaotic system to an ordered system, against entropy, is what interests me.


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Just another spore in the wind.


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OfflineKonnrade
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: Seuss]
    #5791308 - 06/26/06 01:19 AM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Seeing as how this transition occurred in a primordial earth, surrounded by a variety of ambient sources of energy, then it is possible that the creation of such structures does not conflict with the concept of entropy. The required energy could be drawn from the environment.


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I find your lack of faith disturbing


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OfflineCatalysis
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Registered: 04/23/02
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: DadeMurphy]
    #5792621 - 06/26/06 02:00 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

Quote:

-DNA eventually emerges via natural selection (this part of the 'story' was vague or left as unanswered as-of-yet).




Actually, DNA is more stable than RNA. Also, almost all organisms have RNA polymerase which transcribes DNA into RNA. In fact, RNA polymerase in the polio virus can actually use other RNA strands as templates indicating that the original function of this enzyme may have been duplicating RNA.


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Origin of DNA [Re: Seuss]
    #5793104 - 06/26/06 04:43 PM (17 years, 7 months ago)

How does entropy get thwarted?

As Konnrade said, entropy isn't relevant because the Earth isn't a closed system.

The Earth is loaded with geothermal energy, more so billions of years ago, and at that time it was constantly bombarded with meteors too. But most importantly, the sun provides a constant inflow of energy to counter entropy.

It does so still as all life on Earth (barring really weird chemosynthetic deep ocean life) is ultimately driven by solar energy via photosynthesis.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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