How is it possible for life to spring from none life?

From a vague recollection, if you run an electrical current through an amino acid, it can turn into a protein. Proteins are the building blocks of life. They've gotten that far in labs, but the conditions on the earth 3 billion years ago were much more condusive to it than now.

You should have made this in Mad Scientists...

... In any case, to answer the question:

Shortly after the Big Bang, there were extremely favorable conditions for nucleosyntesis (the creation of Elements). By this simply fact alone, the creation of amino-acids which lead to proteins, which then leads to RNA, is also favored. In fact, it is now thought that not even RNA is needed, but simpler nucliec acids.

Moreover, "life" has to be defined first, to even answer the question.

There are creatures in planet Earth who move from "non-life" (according to many biological definitions of life), and then come back to life. Not in some unexpected miracle, but regularly, in predictable and observable hibernation periods.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-31-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

There are creatures in planet Earth who move from "non-life" (according to many biological definitions of life), and then come back to life. Not in some unexpected miracle, but regularly, in predictable and observable hibernation periods.

This is not an attack Rust. Would you provide some docs?

It's called Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, the formation of elements, that is. It can actually be observed right now in stars, since they too have favorable conditions to form elements.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/BBNS.html

http://astron.berkeley.edu/~mwhite/darkmatter/bbn.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang_nucleosynthesis



If you're asking for the subsequent favorable conditions, then I don't have a link with me right now but that can be deduced by simple reasoning: If an amino-acid needs elements to form, then the higher the concentration of elements, the more possibilities it has to form, which in turn increase the possibilities of proteins, etc.



[As an aside, there was a great article on this someone posted some time ago. I don't remember who exactly, but it was an article published in Scientific America (if I'm not mistaken) and dealt with self-replicating RNA.

If someone reading this remembers what I'm talking about and has it, please post it again]



[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-03-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by ---Beany---:

How is it possible for life to spring from none life?

The same as for sulphur and iron to turn into iron sulfide, through complicated chemical reactions.

[This message has been edited by midgetbasketball (edited 08-03-2005).]