
Is It Time To Throw Out 'Primordial Soup' Theory? - alexandros
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123447937
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thisisnotmyname
Interestingly enough, just last week I saw a talk given by Jack Szostak
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_W._Szostak>) who researches, and has
actually constructed, proto-life forms. Before a cell needs to worry about an
energy source, it needs to worry about sequestering genetic material within a
membrane, growing and dividing. Dr. Szostak has demonstrated very simple
solutions to these problems for early life. An assumption of his work is that
activated nucleotides (the energy source) are available in the environment and
can freely cross the membrane.

Dr. Lane does not seem to be arguing that there wasn't a "primordial soup" but
that it was concentrated in and around these vents. One problem with this idea
is that early cells likely needed temperature fluctuations to replicate their
genetic material (like a primordial pcr, except with spontaneous nucleotide
assembly on the template instead of having a polymerase), since they would
have lacked the machinery to do so.

------
roundsquare
I wonder if this article is going to bring out the the creationists saying
"see, scientists have no idea what they are talking about."

~~~
pmichaud
But of course we "scientists" know that weakly held opinions are what science
is all about.

~~~
eru
Those scientists, always changing their minds.

