Origin of Life

[Morgyn]

I'm just starting a unit on evolution etc. and we have been looking at some of the different theories on the origin of life. I've been fascinated by this topic for a while and am interested in hearing some opinions/comments on the theories and maybe finding our about some lesser known ones also.

[alextemplet]

Are there any questions in particular that you wish to ask? That's a very broad topic to discuss without having something specific in mind.

[Morgyn]

Well we've just started the theory that life started at incredibly low temperatures, and then also the lightening creating molecules that are found in living organisms etc. So any comments on those would be interesting, but also just people's opinions on which theory (or theories I suppose) they believe to be the most plausible and why.

[alextemplet]

I think I remember reading something about that but it was years ago and my memory's rusty. I have read a very interesting theory that life originated with completely RNA-based organisms, in which the RNA strands served all the necessary functions now performed by not just RNA but also DNA and proteins. I'll have to dig out one of my books on it but it was fascinating how RNA might be able to take on those additional roles.

[Morgyn]

Yeah, I just read an article on the theory that life began in ice and it also has the 'beginning from RNA-based organisms' opinion. Rather than do a terrible job of trying to explain it, I looked it up and, lo and behold, there it was on the net.

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/di ... lve-in-ice

I'm not sure if it's exactly the same one, but it seems to be along the same lines and written by the same guy. Anyway, it blew my mind and I thought other people might be interested in reading it. After reading it, personally, the ice theory looks pretty good to me but I'd love to hear what you think (and let me know if there's anything interesting in the books you dig out)

[AstusAleator]

Fascinating article, and it set me off on a whole trail of reading about the moons of Saturn and Jupiter and whatnot. Great stuff. good post. If could boost your points on this forum somehow I would.

[Morgyn]

Thank you! I also thought this article was amazing, especially the bit about the moons and planets (oddly enough no-one else in my biology class quite got into it as much as I did). I haven't actually looked at anything else on them (though now you've given me the idea I might) but I did get carried away with trying to use the evidence provided to work out the step by step process of the birth of RNA (but as this is only my second year of college [highschool to the yanks] biology I didn't get very far). I still haven't heard much about the other theories but I'm sure some of them must be at least almost as plausible as this one.

PS Did you find any interesting information about the moons? Let me know if there were any sources of particular interest.