
New hypothesis for origin of life proposed - nickb
http://www.physorg.com/news115988029.html
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ingenium
Definitely an interesting theory. I could absolutely see life forming there,
though some of her arguments are a little over the top:

"RNA plays an important part in translating the genetic code, and is composed
of nitrogenous bases, sugar, and phosphates. RNA and many proteins and lipids
in our cells have negative charges like mica. RNA's phosphate groups are
spaced one half nanometer apart, just like the negative charges on mica."

This is coincidence and nothing more. Lots of things have a negative charge.
In fact, half of all things with a charge must be negative. The same with the
phosphate groups. I assume she means the distance between the phosphate group
in subsequent ribonucleotides, since in the chain each ribonucleotide has only
one phosphate group. However, I believe this distance can change based on how
the RNA is folded (it's never in a straight chain like it's drawn unless it's
bound to its complimentary strand).

I hope more research is done on this though, because it would solve some
problems with the primordial soup hypothesis.

~~~
kirse
I agree, I wonder how many origin-of-life hypotheses are created each day
sometimes...

Formula for OOL Hypothesis:

1) Find extremely old rock layer / ocean bed, etc that contains materials that
are components of today's living organisms

2) Take High-res microscopic pictures of gel or bubbly substance, toss in a
few arrows

3) Throw in a few words about positive/negative charges to satisfy the amino
acid creation requirement

4) Make up a source of heat -- i.e. sun through magnified glass, earthquake,
volcanic activity, etc.

5) Release theory!

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mattmaroon
More satanic trickery! Again the devil fools the nonbelievers.

In all seriousness though, more posts like this please. There should be hacker
news for non-computer science nerds like me.

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gojomo
I've heard the idea of life forming on mineral surfaces before; see for
example from 1998:

[http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/98/980331.origin.of.li...](http://www-
news.uchicago.edu/releases/98/980331.origin.of.life.shtml)

My money's on extraterrestrial origin, aka 'exogenesis', and probably
'panspermia' as well. (We'll eventually find life almost everywhere.) See:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia>

