With colleague Tracey Lincoln, Gerald Joyce (picured) has created an artificial genetic system that can undergo self-sustained replication and evolution. Credit: Scripps Research Institute
SAN DIEGO: Can life arise from nothing but a chaotic assortment of basic molecules? The answer is a lot closer following a series of ingenious experiments that have shown evolution at work in non-living molecules.
For the first time, scientists have synthesized RNA enzymes – ribonucleic acid enzymes also known as ribozymes – that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components.
What’s more, these simple nucleic acids can act as catalysts and continue the process indefinitely.
‘Immortal’ molecules
“There’s nothing in biology in this system: no proteins, no cells, no biological matter. We just provide them with the building blocks,” said molecular biologist Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.
“They’re just molecules, so they do what they do until they run out of substrate. And this will go for ever – it’s an immortal molecule, if you like,” he told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.
Since he and colleague Tracey Lincoln first succeeded in creating this artificial genetic system that can undergo self-sustained replication and evolution last year, the molecules have changed dramatically as they evolve better and better solutions.
Survival of the fittest
The researchers began with ribozymes known to occur naturally, and put these in a growth medium, heated them and allowed the ribozymes to replicate until they had exhausted their fuel – usually within an hour.
The team then extracted a random subset, and put them in a new medium: ribozymes then competed with each other to consume as much of the medium as possible.
Eventually more successful ribozymes came to dominate the culture, and as the process continued, the ribozymes – undergoing evolution – grew in complexity, blindly finding solutions that made them more successful.
“The key thing is it replicates itself, and passes information from parent to progeny down the line,” Joyce told Cosmos Online.
“There’s roughly 30 bits of information passed. Some functions are more fit than others, and those that are more fit ‘breed’ more, and are perpetuated more efficiently, and so it goes Darwinian.”
The ultimate goal is to create genetic systems that behave like life, and are for all intents ‘life’ as we know it, but arose without using biological systems.
“The aim is to create systems that have inventive capabilities, that can develop novel solutions to challenges posed by the environment. But that we don’t have yet,” he said.
“What we do have is a self-sustained chemical system that undergoes Darwinian evolution.
Synthetic genetic systems
“They are synthetic genetic systems, and they are evolving. But they’re not living because they don’t yet show the capacity to invent functions out of whole cloth [independently from basic building blocks].
“The idea is to given them enough information wherewithal [build up enough genetic informaton] so they can start inventing their own solutions, rather than just optimising existing solutions,” he added.
Joyce said it was not practical to synthesize the more complex DNA-based life we know from scratch; it’s too complex and probably beyond today’s science. But it is conceivable to start with a much more basic form of life-like molecules based on RNA, and use evolution to build on them.
RNA world hypothesis
Many scientists believe that early life was based on RNA and predated the arrival of life based on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and proteins. RNA, which can both store information like DNA as well as act as an enzyme like proteins, and may have supported pre-cellular life.
A lading proponent of the so-called ‘RNA world’ hypothesis, Joyce believes that RNA-based catalysis and information storage may have been the first step in the evolution of cellular life.
Joyce Laboratory
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Hmmm… sounds fascinating, but reading between the lines, its not really clear what these scientists observed or accomplished beyond a specific type of chemical reaction.
What was the mechanism that allowed these molecules to grow in complexity? What “problems” are they solving? What is meant by complexity? These words are so incredibly ambiguous and overloaded that without very clear definitions and specifics, I remain skeptical.
What could possibly go wrong?
Ha! It appears someone from Answers in Genesis already on top of this…
In an autocatalysis environment beneficial mutations of RNA strains ( as RNA duplication is not perfect) would be propagated.
Typically, the measure for something like this (extrapolating from similar DNA experiments) is simply the ability to consume the substrate (“food” if you like). The article mentions that initially the chemical reaction consumed the substrate in 1 hour. The better-adapted molecules consume it faster/more efficiently/prevent others (“starving” competition). By selecting randomly from whatever remains at the end, the most successful (by that simple definition) are statistically more numerous and therefore more likely to be chosen in the random sample.
“Skeptical”? It’s science: we’re welcome to reproduce the experiments
ourselves, we don’t have to philosophize for 100s of years on this one.
Just a note to the visitor above and others that are curious about the details – there is a link at the bottom of the article under “More Information”.
The site includes a news article with more detail on the specifics of the research:
http://www.scripps.edu/mb/joyce/Lincolnjoycenw.htm
This includes more detail on the self-replicating RNA and how it demonstrated evolutionary behaviour.
Just like the article’s title, the researchers emphasise that this is life-like evolution, not something living.
> it’s an immortal molecule, …
Until the sun sets…. bzzzt.
This article lacks descriptive information regarding the actual measurements and methods used to come to these conclusions. Furthermore what are the “evolutionary” assessments? Are they advantageous or positively selecting modifications in replication, or were these “evolutionary” steps random drift in populations?
Hey can anyone point me to the paper that describes the research referred to in this piece? The most recent publication on his site is a year old. Is this new?
It’s just an explanation for common people to translate the complex process that was performed and its meaningful results.
On the side of religion though the existence, verification or confirmation of evolution wont completely dismiss religion as a whole. Why can’t there be a natural process through which an entity such as god works, maybe that’s how he created it. Isn’t just possible that the bible gives a “sugar coated”, simplified version of what actually took place. If you where to explain how you created a moving picture on a wall to people around the time of Christ you would more than likely put it into terms they could understand.
So I implore you, read between the lines, On the first day starting exactly at 12:00 did god create “time” hah, fire, water, dirt and the idea of being late. Or.. maybe it’s simply a metaphor explained in a type of representation so us simple mortals can understand the complex processes that went on?
I’m not religious and don’t care in much of either direction but, it’s just an explanation put out in the world so everyone can understand and fell the importance of the message.
And I tend to a agree with you, what have we really achieved here? I’ll start believing its actually evolution when it starts to become something more than building blocks.
What was achieved by this research is a demonstration of how the basic mechanism of evolution theory, natural selection, works when you have molecules that can replicate, pass their properties on and mutate. Molecules more fit for their environment are statistically more likely to be selected (via the random sample) to live on and replicate more. They are therefore more likely to have good (and bad) mutations, and eventually more likely to produce a better fit for the environment, which would go on and dominate, repeating the process.
Peer review takes a while so a year is nothing. A year is newish, they didn’t just plan setup and run the experiment in one day. After all that work there was more than likely many months of chemical and statistical analysis then they have to write a paper and publish it. So the initial work could be a decade or more ago.
Science 27 February 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5918, pp. 1229 – 1232
DOI: 10.1126/science.1167856
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1167856
Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme
Tracey A. Lincoln and Gerald F. Joyce*
An RNA enzyme that catalyzes the RNA-templated joining of RNA was converted to a format whereby two enzymes catalyze each other’s synthesis from a total of four oligonucleotide substrates. These cross-replicating RNA enzymes undergo self-sustained exponential amplification in the absence of proteins or other biological materials. Amplification occurs with a doubling time of about 1 hour and can be continued indefinitely. Populations of various cross-replicating enzymes were constructed and allowed to compete for a common pool of substrates, during which recombinant replicators arose and grew to dominate the population. These replicating RNA enzymes can serve as an experimental model of a genetic system. Many such model systems could be constructed, allowing different selective outcomes to be related to the underlying properties of the genetic system.
Department of Chemistry, Department of Molecular Biology, and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gjoyce@scripps.edu
Originally published in Science Express on 8 January 2009
Science 27 February 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5918, pp. 1229 – 1232
DOI: 10.1126/science.1167856
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1167856
Self-Sustained Replication of an RNA Enzyme
Tracey A. Lincoln and Gerald F. Joyce*
An RNA enzyme that catalyzes the RNA-templated joining of RNA was converted to a format whereby two enzymes catalyze each other’s synthesis from a total of four oligonucleotide substrates. These cross-replicating RNA enzymes undergo self-sustained exponential amplification in the absence of proteins or other biological materials. Amplification occurs with a doubling time of about 1 hour and can be continued indefinitely. Populations of various cross-replicating enzymes were constructed and allowed to compete for a common pool of substrates, during which recombinant replicators arose and grew to dominate the population. These replicating RNA enzymes can serve as an experimental model of a genetic system. Many such model systems could be constructed, allowing different selective outcomes to be related to the underlying properties of the genetic system.
Department of Chemistry, Department of Molecular Biology, and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gjoyce@scripps.edu
Why do you hate science so much that you need to spout your unfounded fundamentalism here? You are somewhat right though: there are no measurements and methods&materials listed here. That is because it is not a scientific journal it is published in! If you had ever read some, you would have know… As for evolution or random: it does not matter, its both. The mutations are random because RNA replication is a sloppy process. It is through that randomness combined with the experimental setup that the most fit are selected. And as you might know, evolution works trough the selection of the fittest (or slightly reworded: unselection of the unfit).
If you had any real interest in this subject, you could do a simulation on your computer. I don’t think you ever will though.
The biological implications may be more or less interesting (less to me). The other possibilities ie: self replicating machines would seem to be more interesting….
People immediately jump to meta-physical conclusions or feel compelled to leap to the defense of a uncompromising materialist view of existence…it’s a dead end for both science and faith…
One does not need to be a strict materialist to do “good” science.
In a few short years (50 ? 60?) we will all be dead…we will have an answer, or not, to the question of ultimate meaning. If we are meat, then the meaning of the “truths” of science or religion will have absolutely no consequence and effectively no present meaning….
The ultimate darwinian test will be to see if a population (society) without faith can successfully reproduce and compete with a population which is encouraged by faith to aggressively reproduce….For now the evidence we see in Europe seems to suggest that the more “advanced” society will fail to reproduce itself and will be replaced by a different population and the darwin meme in science will be extinguished through natural selection….
I find it interesting that as soon as evolution is mentioned, the religious deny it and the proponents of evolutionary theory defend it. The last time I checked, it was fair – and indeed, proper – to question a scientific experiment and it’s outcomes. They used to call it something… Oh, yeah, “The Scientific Method”.
Now the “evolutionary religion” will not accept any challenges to their dogmatic adherence to their theology. Anyone who questions their beliefs is dismissed as ignorant or a heretic. Hmm… Sounds less like true science and more like the stones they throw at other religions that disagree with their own.
I find it a fair question to ask what these scientists mean by “evolution”. Since they are operating in a contrived environment and they intelligently select the most successful molecules for the next round, it seems that they argue more for “intelligent design” than pure evolution. I plan to read the scientific article listed because I am interested in their methodology and outcomes and what it can mean to RNA as a method for evolution.
It’s a pity people on both sides can’t put their predetermined ideologies aside and conduct real science!
I don’t know it this applies to your place, but in the places I’ve been, departments’ “efficiency” is measured by the number of publications in a given year, and that is what decides if the money must come or not. So we ALWAYS need to have recent publications for ongoing work.
It is not a great solution, as stated in the excellent “Stop the numbers game” here http://www.dcc.uchile.cl/~cgutierr/cursos/INV/Couting%20Papers_p19-parnas.pdf
I sense huge amounts of idiocy in this post. Let me sum it up for you.
One side has all of science and modern knowledge as supporting evidence. Everything from physics to chemistry to biology all point unambiguously to evolution.
The other side? Mythology and a single book written by goat herders with less than a 1st grade level of understanding of the universe.
One side is serious science. The other side is a joke.
“The idea is to given them enough information wherewithal [genetic building blocks] so they can start inventing their own solutions rather than just optimizing existing solutions.”
According to the Zeitgeist Movement, all that even humans do is copy existing observed solutions for novel situations. So, “the idea,” or goal is impossible. They say there is no such thing as intelligence because of the way stated in the last sentence. Therefore, the expirement has created life as we know it, just not as most of us perceive it.
The fitness metric for determining the most successful molecules in each iteration of the experiment is simply this: the most successful molecules make the most copies of themselves. If you can take samples and “pick” the most successful molecules by this metric, there’s no intelligence whatsoever in the process. It’s a bit like walking into a warehouse, and you have boxes of three different colors, and through a completely mechanistic process called “taking an inventory” you find out that the majority of the boxes are all blue.
The only reason scientists are manually taking samples from one iteration to seed the next is that each iteration uses up its entire growth medium. It’s possible to create variations of the experiment where a representative sample from one iteration is obtained and introduced to a fresh growth medium — in which case, some less successful molecules are going to slip through, and will likely be just as disadvantaged in their new environment as they were in their old.
Questioning a hypothesis is part of the scientific method. Even questioning an established theory is quite acceptable, even expected. But please don’t try to cloak what some of the naysayers are doing here in the guise of “questioning scientific orthodoxy.” Please, no Ben Stein apologetics, mmkay?
And please be very careful about what you mean when you say “intelligent,” because much of what people think of as intelligence is not. If a machine, a simple automaton, can be made to do something, then it’s not intelligent. Picking the most populous molecule out of a population of molecules in a solution is not intelligent — it’s something that chemical engineering does every day to run industry. These processes are simple, fool-proof, and repeatable — because they have to be.
It should be obvious just from reading this article what is meant by evolution. They started with one set of RNA molecules, and now they have RNA molecules that are different and which are clearly “better” at making more copies of themselves, compared to other molecular variants that clearly are not as good at self-replication. That’s Darwinian evolution in a nutshell.
What you’re taking issue with is the methodology, and cleverly injecting the seed of doubt that this somehow bolsters “intelligent design.” What you fail to appreciate is that if these scientists didn’t place stringent controls upon the experiment at each stage, they would not have been able to get useful statistical data on the different molecular populations; the alternative is to throw everything in a big vat, keep adding “food,” and see what happens — but that’s not science, and it’s doubtful any useful data would emerge, especially concerning taking snapshots of intermediate generations. The methodology used gave these scientists useful stopping points where they could assess what happened in each phase or “generation.”
In other words, while it’s good to question the methodology used in this experiment, you should also be asking th question, “How could they have done it better and still satisfy the requirements of doing real, quantitative science?” After all, it’s the real science you are promoting here, right?
I actually had a pretty thoughtful response written, but it seems to have been eaten… unless it’s been held for moderation. Didn’t see a warning to that effect, though.
Yes, it is fair and proper to question scientific experiments and conclusions. This, however, doesn’t mean there is no such thing as a stupid question, and in particular, those stupid questions that have been addressed and answered ad nauseam.
Those of us who understand evolutionary theory and have to deal with the absurd rhetoric of the Creationist/ID crowd are cynical of questions from them, not because we don’t believe anyone should question, but because it is painfully obvious that the questions being asked are not out of the interest of learning and understanding, but to engage in obfuscation and obscurantism in the name of making evolutionary science seem less defensible than it really is.
This is evidenced in your very post, where you say the researchers “intelligently select the most successful molecules for the next round.” What part of allowing the ribozymes to freely compete with one another, hands-off, in a chemical medium constitutes “intelligent design,” except in some extremely trivial and vacuous sense that the researchers are intelligent agents and the chemical environment they concocted had to select for some end result? You may as well hire a financial manager to throw darts at the stock pages to pick out a portfolio and call that intelligent selection. After all, the manager is intelligent, and the darts were selective, so this was an intelligently selected portfolio, right? You are playing fast and loose with what these terms mean, and it has no relevance at all to the issue of abiogenesis (which is what the Creationists/IDers are objecting to when research like this makes the news), because a natural chemical environment not constructed in a lab will still select for some molecules over others. In other words, the fact that this was done in a lab does not preclude its happening in nature.
Once again, do you have the right to question? Of course you do. But try to understand where the other side is coming from when they find these questions annoying. There are still Creationists and ID proponents running around asking “if we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” and there simply comes a point when questions like this are looked upon cynically by those who know much better.
It’s Cosmos, not a scientific journal. If you really want to know more about it you could read the paper in Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, or you could click on the link to the Joyce lab at the bottom of the article.
The researchers insist that what they’ve got is not life. I’m curious as to the definition of life that they’re using, and why the molecules don’t meet it?
What is the crucial aspect that these molecules are lacking that make them not life?
What they’re doing sure sounds like life.
Maybe if you actually read the research paper instead of just the pop-sci summary on a science blog? A quick search for both the listed authors will take you to the article at the publisher’s website. That publisher, by the way, is Science – so maybe you should check your hubris and reserve judgement until after you have at least a chance of knowing what you’re talking about? Just a thought.
As a stockbroker I do not appreciate public disclosure of our trade secrets about dartboards
So, after 8 years the brilliant engineers were able to take self-replicating enzyimes and watch them replicate with mutations. This is EXACTLY why the government should stop taking my money and giving it to scientific researchers.
At first blush these discoveries are extremely interesting, but, perhaps I have watched too many science fiction movies, so my question is: What dangers are there that out-of-control evolving molecules might enter the environment outside of the lab and run rampant, consuming matter “in the wild” so to speak, and both harming the planet and its current crop of occupants?
Such issues are not frivolous and must be addressed, especially given the well-known human propensity to screw up and let loose scourges that are difficult or even impossible to control or kill.
i never can understand scientists who discuss religion as if it were a defective science. religion is such an ethnocentric category belonging to a narrow set of cultures. it is not a term which translates easily from one language to another. both those that defend and those that attack religion really have no scientic basis for their arguments. it’s like arguing whether squeezing orange juice is better than or worse than driving on the right side of the road. it’s an absurd discussion and meaningless.
There are so many spelling errors in this article it burns my eyes. Or it could be because I have the brightness set too high on my monitor. But seriously Cosmos editors, proof read much?
In any case, brilliant article. It’s a shame it doesn’t delve into the science, but that’s okay. I’ll hunt for the journal articles later.
I’ll presume you deliberately misread the article? If not, how you determine that randomly selecting a sample of those molecules present at the end of a “round” of the experiment constitutes intelligently selecting the fittest ones – when in reality, the fittest ones have selected themselves by having outnumbered the competition. If that’s not darwinian evolution in its most basic form, what is?
Science answers the question of: “How”
Religion answers the question of: “Why”
Those are two different kinds of questions, and justifiably deserve different disciplines in terms of searching for the proper answers.
BTW, while some religious leaders do have the scientific understanding of a door stop, I have known some very religious people possessing advanced degrees in scientific disciplines and being able to hold a legitimate argument down in terms of defending a religious viewpoint.
Some I’ve know personally and others like Albert Einstein by reputation. Einstein was a deeply religious person who clearly understood science and surprisingly made significant contributions both to religious and scientific thought.
To suggest that there are only two philosophical camps in a discussion of evolution is so close minded that it makes all supporters of evolution as a theory to be a bunch of jackasses. I know that also to be otherwise.
For myself, I believe that there is a God, an omnipotent and benevolent being mostly running this Universe, but I also believe that He uses natural processes to bring about his desires. That may also include evolution. All the Bible says about the creation of the world is why it happened…. certainly not how it happened or how long it took.
Religious nuts who claim that the world we live in was created in 7- 24 hour periods of time I think to be just as much of a nut case as those who completely deny God and condemn those who may hold such a belief. In both the original Hebrew and in English, the term “day” means merely a period of time. How long? It could be 24 hours or 2 billion years. From a theological viewpoint, the question for how long a “day” really means in Genesis is irrelevant. What God did during that period of time and how he accomplished His goals…. again, it doesn’t say in the Bible or any other significant religious text.
There are already a great number of these little beasties running about in the wild. They are found in modified form in living things – RNA is a cousin to DNA, and RNA of various stripes feature in our own biology. I wouldn’t worry too much about them becoming super-RNA world-eaters – our own RNA has gone through more than enough evolution to knock the socks off of these little guys. I do encourage proper laboratory sanitation and cleanliness, however!
Fascinating article, and a good use of money. This sort of research is what cures-for-cancer are made of.
This is an Australian magazine, and the spelling is the kind you find in most places of the world where English is spoken – except the USA.
The commenter’s skepticism wasn’t about the facts of the experiment, but about their interpretation.
Re. “complexity”, information is one measure, and the 30 bits mentioned in the article isn’t a lot.
Re. the topic in general, it should be kept in mind that “evolution”, as understood in biology, is about change in genetically based systems, not about how they originated, before biology got rolling.
Sorry for the skepticism, but what “environmental problems” are the Scientists going to pit these little beasts against? Global Warming, Agricultural Pests? Oil pills?
This is a VERY VERY bad idea. Self replicating chemicals can only be good for one thing, polluting at best, at worst taking over the environment. Examples of this include “Killer Bees” Asian Beetles, Asian Carp, Creeping Charlie, the list goes on and on, and that is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is yet another example of the “straw grabbing” that some in science do to “justify” the flawed model of Darwinian Evolution.
Naturally occurring RNA? Where is it found “naturally”…..Is this something recovered from a meteor? From the ISS? or where? And how can it be determined that this is not “life byproducts”.
I will be willing to entertain this theory if and when the “scientists” start totally from scratch, not “fudging” with existing complex molecules.
They are “assembling” life using prefabricated pieces.
That said, only one question, who prefabricated the “base” RNA molecules?
these scientists are like kids with tinker toys……they can make things from the tinker toy parts, but without a wood shop and fairly precise tools, they cannot make new building blocks.
Jim
What if it’s a scientist?
You see, in science, unlike in poor rhetoric, there is still a difference between asking for details about an assertion and spouting off a rote contradiction of it.
“You say fitness increased; by what measure?” is an entirely scientific question to ask. It need not imply hostility to the idea, much less to its whole background.
Or, equally valid questions for a philosopher: “Given that this system is not homeostatic, is it really any more life-like than what we had before? We have computer programs that evolve algorithms — is this an advance merely because you used biological molecules? And in a way, I might add, that’s somewhat atypical for modern organisms, i.e. for life as we know it.”
Or, for a journalist: “How much of this is the experimenter’s own interpretation, and how much of it is yours? How confident are you that you understand what you are reporting?”
I don’t see any hatred of science above, nor any fundamentalist claims made. I do see a popularized report of a very cool experiment, then some questions about its interpretation and reporting, and then a couple of would-be defenders of science who seem to have a persecution complex. Relax. Truth will survive, with or without the help of un-proofread put-downs frantically lobbed at anyone who might be from the opposing tribe. So you may as well assume good faith.
Your astounding ignorance is showing.
Science can only give you the argument, not the intelligence with which to understand it. There’s no point even trying to engage with buffons like you.
Why don’t you stay away from this site and just hang out with your Creationist/Climate Denier friends and stop boring everyone here?
If that were true, it wouldn’t describe the God of the Old or New testaments. So Jehovah is no more plausible than any of the thousands of other gods which mankind has invented.
He wrote: “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Einstein also wrote: “For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.” Also: “It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously.”
It seems Einstein was deeply … something, but I doubt religious. If Einstein had a God, it was probably the whole universe which as we know is filled with mystery and wonder. It certainly wasn’t Jehovah or any of the other gods which mankind has invented throughout the ages. Einstein obviously didn’t pray or engage in any religious rituals – thus, I find it doubtful that he could be called a religious person. Spiritual perhaps, but that word carries another set of connotations which may not be appropriate.
I’ll leave by quoting from http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/einstein/section11.rhtml which says about Einstein,
That site also begins with “Einstein was a deeply religious individual” – but once again, how can a person be said to be religious who does not perform religious rituals, ignores religious traditions, and denies the concepts upon which religions are based? So maybe “spiritual” will have to do.
Christopher Weir, brushing past your obvious lack of understanding of the topic, if you are so anti-science, why do you use a computer, and the internet? Perhaps when you have put down your copy of the Daily Heil you should give some thought to the meaning of hypocracy?
I’d be interested to see if your stance changes if you find yourself in hospital. “No, i don’t want that filthy treatment bourne of useless science.”
Besides which, the Government is acting on behalf of the population (ie you), if you dislike what they do in your name, then you should vote for change. Fortunately, the members of society with rational minds can see that science is probably the most important activity known to man.
Toby
your skepticism should remain based on the magazine article, but if you were to read the published article your questions may be answered. or reading the first couple chapters of ‘the selfish gene’ by Richard Dawkins makes it clear what problem they are working toward solving. the online magazine creates the hype and buzz words, not the scientists.
Well said and hear, hear!
Perhaps it will become evolution when granted a more complex environment with various different resources to interact with (and a lot more time).
I am not a scientist really. I think scientifically in my mind, and I read many science books, but I do not regularly perform science subject oriented experiments.
Perhaps at some point a building block latches onto a set of compounds it bumps into and creates a bond with it to combine and create an epidermal layer? This could certainly evolve. Perhaps at some point two “building blocks” interact and they have a good match to attach to one another. And maybe if this were to occur they might somehow combine in chemical reaction to create a 3rd building block. You never know. But I’m just a generalist hence how vague my terms really are. Its wonderful to think about this kind of stuff. I always thought that life arose when a set of chemicals reacted and just sorta liked each other and had a type of algorithmic reaction with each other and becoming more complex.
I also think it would be absurd to think that this happens randomly or “on accident”… To me its only pure logic that says there is some kind of intelligent intent among the universe which allows this to happen. To say we are an “accident” or “random” is the most blatantly absurd assumption that anyone could come to. There is something crazy going on in this universe and we are on the brink of discovering it… Its either we discover it in peace, or we blow ourselves up over some random bullshit that doesn’t really matter. Either way I am sure that death is nothing to worry about at all. because… as Carl Sagan and others put it..
“The cosmos is all that is, ever was and ever will be.
(All of this is my “belief” so there is no need to respond or attack it, you get to think whatever you want too!)
It tells you exactly how its version of events happened. No clue where you got this idea that it did not. Not trying to argue but I’m sure that you must’ve not really been thinking about what you were typing in a rush to add more to your comment. lol
The article shows a major step in chemical evolution, or prebiotic evolution, which necessarily precedes biologic evolution. If a molecule containing genetic information such as a ribonucleotide can 1)replicate, and 2)catalyze its own metabolism, then you have the basis for natural selection and complexity will increase as a result in due time. For example, if any naturally formed ribozymes evolved a lipid membrane to contain their catalysis then they would have a large selective advantage over the promiscuous ribozymes and would be the basis for the first cells. RNA, which contains genetic information, can self-replicate and autocatalyze, as shown by this article. It carries functions of both proteins and DNA that enables natural selection to act upon it.
Hi Jim,
Don’t sweat on the oil pills[sic], just spoke to Jesus and he’s going to round up Thor, Isis and the rest of the gang to sort this out for us.
Why is it that when the word evolution is used in an article suddenly people start carrying on about God. Read ‘religion dispatches’ if you want to talk about God. In fact it’s not a bad emag. This is a science mag, let’s keep it about science. It’s not controversial, it’s stupid. Like giving baseball statistics in a basketball mag.
Funny stuff, but so true.
Ok, let see the process simplified:
- take some ribozymes known to occur naturally from their “habitat”
- put these in a growth medium
- heat them
- extract a random subset
- put them in a new medium
- watch them “evolve”
This is the same as cloning of mouse. Is it possible in labs – YES, does it happen in the nature without human intervention – NO. If some processes are not intended to happen naturally (for example ribozymes to “evolve” on suggested way), well, they will not happen. Who would in normal circumstances remove ribozynes in a new medium after “they had exhausted their fuel”? So much of “immortal molecules”.
Everything in existence undergoes evolution, which is a highly misunderstood term. Most believe that evolution has to be something completely outrageous and largely different from the progenitor to the progeny. Evolution can be something as outstanding as people who live on the coast developing fins and gills to something as small as a child being more resistant to a particular disease than the parent who had it many times as a child. =)
Sounds like another “breakthrough,” to have cooked up some “lifelike” acids that have the ability to spread.
The only problem is that no matter how many chemicals you fry and mess around with, you’re never going to get the principal factor for life by coincidence and messing around: (genetic) information. And the basic requirement to obtain information is an Author.
How many of the commenters read the paper in science before putting their two cents in?
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