These excerpts from an article on David Deamer.

UCSC chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell

"Membranous boundary structures define all life today," he said. "A
source of membrane-bounded microenvironments on the early Earth was
essential for the rise of cellular life."
Deamer has been investigating the origins of life for more than 20
years, with continuous funding from NASA's Exobiology and Astrobiology
Programs. In the 1980s, he demonstrated that meteorites contain
molecules capable of forming stable membranes. More recently, he has
ventured from the laboratory into the field to test ideas about the
kind of environment where life could have begun....

In June 2005, he led a team of scientists, including Russian geologist
Vladimir Kompanichenko, to the Kamchatka region in eastern Russia, an
area abounding in pools of water heated and sterilized by constant
volcanic activity. Deamer carried with him a version of the
"primordial soup"--a mixture of compounds like those a meteorite could
have delivered to the early Earth, including a fatty acid, amino
acids, phosphate, glycerol, and the building blocks of nucleic acids.
Finding a promising-looking boiling pool on the flanks of an active
volcano, he poured the mixture in and then took samples from the pool
at various intervals for analysis back in the lab at UCSC.

The results were strikingly negative: life did not emerge, no
membranes assembled themselves, and no amino acids combined into
proteins. Instead, the added chemicals quickly vanished, mostly
absorbed by clay particles in the pool. Instead of supporting life,
the bubbling pool had snuffed it out before it began. Later, Deamer
repeated the same experiment at Lassen Volcanic National Park in
northern California, with the same negative result.

What went wrong? The explanation is simple, said Deamer, who presented
his findings in February at a meeting of the Royal Society of London.
Conditions in geothermal springs and similar extreme environments just
do not favor membrane formation, which is inhibited or disrupted by
acidity, dissolved salts, high temperatures, and calcium, iron, and
magnesium ions. Furthermore, mineral surfaces in these clay-lined
pools tend to remove phosphates and organic chemicals from the
solution.

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

Unfortunately, Deamer is another one with a pop and adapt scenario:
First magic chemistry pops out of nothing. then protected in vesicles
they are safe to adapt.
But the magic chemistry is fluke chemistry, and the 'safe to adapt' is
another fluke. Again we have a pop and adapt theory, with fluke
squared chance of happening.

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

Tom Hendricks wrote:
"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

As far as I know it is not true, though - e.g.:

``Hydrothermal systems might be the place to look. They
are being increasingly invoked as sites for "the origin of life"
(Holm 1992; Russell and Hall 1997), and they seem especially
good places for the earliest stages of the kind of evolution
we are trying to imagine. Layer silicates, for example,
grow and dissolve relatively quickly at moderately high
temperatures and pressures.''

-http://www.elementsmagazine.org/Elements_online/ELEM_V1n3.pdf

Deamer is incorrectly generalising from the failure of his bucket
of slime to "self-assembly processes" here.

Membranes are not the only thing that can self-assemble.

IMO, membrane self-assembly is irrelevant to the problem
of the origin of life - since the first living things were
most likely naked genes - and membranes probably came in
much later - after at least one genetic takeover.

Most of the supposed roles of membranes in holding early
organisms together, stopping them getting washed away,
concentrating molecules, etc are all performed quite well
on mineral surfaces - where a membrane would mostly get
in the way.

Membranes would have been needed /eventually/ to
facilitate some long-distance dispersion strategies
and to allow greater complexity - but such features
would have come in later.

Only one type of self-assembly process in nature is
known that is capable of making high-fidelity copies
of information in prebiotically-plausible environments.

Since evolution actually /does/ depend on the
reliable copying of information, that is the
obvious place to look for the origin of life.

--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

"Tom Hendricks" <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote in messagenews:fq1mmj$5im$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
These excerpts from an article on David Deamer.

UCSC chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell

"Membranous boundary structures define all life today," he said. "A
source of membrane-bounded microenvironments on the early Earth was
essential for the rise of cellular life."
Deamer has been investigating the origins of life for more than 20
years, with continuous funding from NASA's Exobiology and Astrobiology
Programs. In the 1980s, he demonstrated that meteorites contain
molecules capable of forming stable membranes. More recently, he has
ventured from the laboratory into the field to test ideas about the
kind of environment where life could have begun....

In June 2005, he led a team of scientists, including Russian geologist
Vladimir Kompanichenko, to the Kamchatka region in eastern Russia, an
area abounding in pools of water heated and sterilized by constant
volcanic activity. Deamer carried with him a version of the
"primordial soup"--a mixture of compounds like those a meteorite could
have delivered to the early Earth, including a fatty acid, amino
acids, phosphate, glycerol, and the building blocks of nucleic acids.
Finding a promising-looking boiling pool on the flanks of an active
volcano, he poured the mixture in and then took samples from the pool
at various intervals for analysis back in the lab at UCSC.

The results were strikingly negative: life did not emerge, no
membranes assembled themselves, and no amino acids combined into
proteins. Instead, the added chemicals quickly vanished, mostly
absorbed by clay particles in the pool. Instead of supporting life,
the bubbling pool had snuffed it out before it began. Later, Deamer
repeated the same experiment at Lassen Volcanic National Park in
northern California, with the same negative result.

What went wrong? The explanation is simple, said Deamer, who presented
his findings in February at a meeting of the Royal Society of London.
Conditions in geothermal springs and similar extreme environments just
do not favor membrane formation, which is inhibited or disrupted by
acidity, dissolved salts, high temperatures, and calcium, iron, and
magnesium ions. Furthermore, mineral surfaces in these clay-lined
pools tend to remove phosphates and organic chemicals from the
solution.

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

Sounds that way to me too.  Deamer is a bit of an odd-man-out from
my viewpoint.  He understands the importance of lipids and membranes.
But he (rather absurdly, IMHO) is a confirmed believer in a heterotrophic
origin, and one fed by extraterrestrial sources to boot.  Very weird.

Unfortunately, Deamer is another one with a pop and adapt scenario:
First magic chemistry pops out of nothing. then protected in vesicles
they are safe to adapt.
But the magic chemistry is fluke chemistry, and the 'safe to adapt' is
another fluke. Again we have a pop and adapt theory, with fluke
squared chance of happening.

Tom, I really wish you would try to understand what other people are
saying, rather than seeking the rhetoric to mock it.  But then I really
wish politicians would do that too.  And they don't follow my wishes
either.

[snip]

On Feb 27, 12:47 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:
Tom Hendricks wrote:

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."
This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.
As far as I know it is not true, though - e.g.:

``Hydrothermal systems might be the place to look. [...]
Layer silicates, for example,
grow and dissolve relatively quickly at moderately high
temperatures and pressures.''

-http://www.elementsmagazine.org/Elements_online/ELEM_V1n3.pdf

Deamer is incorrectly generalising from the failure of his bucket
of slime to "self-assembly processes" here.

Membranes are not the only thing that can self-assemble. [...]

But your idea is also another pop and adapt scenario.

On Feb 27, 12:24 am, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
"Tom Hendricks" <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote in messagenews:fq1mmj$5im$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
These excerpts from an article on David Deamer.

UCSC chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell

"Membranous boundary structures define all life today," he said. "A
source of membrane-bounded microenvironments on the early Earth was
essential for the rise of cellular life."
Deamer has been investigating the origins of life for more than 20
years, with continuous funding from NASA's Exobiology and Astrobiology
Programs. In the 1980s, he demonstrated that meteorites contain
molecules capable of forming stable membranes. More recently, he has
ventured from the laboratory into the field to test ideas about the
kind of environment where life could have begun....

In June 2005, he led a team of scientists, including Russian geologist
Vladimir Kompanichenko, to the Kamchatka region in eastern Russia, an
area abounding in pools of water heated and sterilized by constant
volcanic activity. Deamer carried with him a version of the
"primordial soup"--a mixture of compounds like those a meteorite could
have delivered to the early Earth, including a fatty acid, amino
acids, phosphate, glycerol, and the building blocks of nucleic acids.
Finding a promising-looking boiling pool on the flanks of an active
volcano, he poured the mixture in and then took samples from the pool
at various intervals for analysis back in the lab at UCSC.

The results were strikingly negative: life did not emerge, no
membranes assembled themselves, and no amino acids combined into
proteins. Instead, the added chemicals quickly vanished, mostly
absorbed by clay particles in the pool. Instead of supporting life,
the bubbling pool had snuffed it out before it began. Later, Deamer
repeated the same experiment at Lassen Volcanic National Park in
northern California, with the same negative result.

What went wrong? The explanation is simple, said Deamer, who presented
his findings in February at a meeting of the Royal Society of London.
Conditions in geothermal springs and similar extreme environments just
do not favor membrane formation, which is inhibited or disrupted by
acidity, dissolved salts, high temperatures, and calcium, iron, and
magnesium ions. Furthermore, mineral surfaces in these clay-lined
pools tend to remove phosphates and organic chemicals from the
solution.

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

Sounds that way to me too. Deamer is a bit of an odd-man-out from
my viewpoint. He understands the importance of lipids and membranes.
But he (rather absurdly, IMHO) is a confirmed believer in a heterotrophic
origin, and one fed by extraterrestrial sources to boot. Very weird.

Unfortunately, Deamer is another one with a pop and adapt scenario:
First magic chemistry pops out of nothing. then protected in vesicles
they are safe to adapt.
But the magic chemistry is fluke chemistry, and the 'safe to adapt' is
another fluke. Again we have a pop and adapt theory, with fluke
squared chance of happening.

Tom, I really wish you would try to understand what other people are
saying, rather than seeking the rhetoric to mock it. But then I really
wish politicians would do that too. And they don't follow my wishes
either.

[snip]

But science ideas need to stand up to tough scrutiny. If they are on
the wrong road, then challenging them helps them. Correct scenarios
will stand up to challenges.

Looking for a chemical fluke or series of chemical flukes is the
mistake that has caused
all OOL scenarios to be stuck. And if Deamer has real proof, I'll be
the first to congratulate him. But if he's another standing in the way of
a real solution, then I'll point out my concerns.
..
We could get through the OOL impasse if we see life as a reflection of
the environment not a magic event popping out of it.

And inherent in all these scenarios is a 'we are life, we are better than
the low class environment around us - we are outside the environment
cause we are so special." Don't you see that too?

Whatever toughness I bring to the discussion just helps IMO.

I tend to picture life as a natural self-organising dissipative
structure - rather like whirlpools, flames or crystal growth.

Such things often need an eddy, spark or seed to get started -
but in those other cases these requirements are not excessively
demanding. How hard is life to get started?

The most relevant data points relating to the magnitude
of the role of chance seem to be:

* Early origin of life on earth;
* No observed life elsewhere with independent origin;
* OOL events not yet reproduced;
* No real synthetic life yet either;
* Common descent - with no modern genesis events observed;

Apart from the first, these tend to suggest that some
improbable event may well have been required. If so,
no matter - there was a whole universe and billions
of years for it to happen in.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

"Tom Hendricks" <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote in messagenews:fq6vn6$6ng$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
On Feb 27, 12:24 am, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
"Tom Hendricks" <tom-hendri...@att.net> wrote in messagenews:fq1mmj$5im$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
These excerpts from an article on David Deamer.

UCSC chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell

"Membranous boundary structures define all life today," he said. "A
source of membrane-bounded microenvironments on the early Earth was
essential for the rise of cellular life."
Deamer has been investigating the origins of life for more than 20
years, with continuous funding from NASA's Exobiology and Astrobiology
Programs. In the 1980s, he demonstrated that meteorites contain
molecules capable of forming stable membranes. More recently, he has
ventured from the laboratory into the field to test ideas about the
kind of environment where life could have begun....

In June 2005, he led a team of scientists, including Russian geologist
Vladimir Kompanichenko, to the Kamchatka region in eastern Russia, an
area abounding in pools of water heated and sterilized by constant
volcanic activity. Deamer carried with him a version of the
"primordial soup"--a mixture of compounds like those a meteorite could
have delivered to the early Earth, including a fatty acid, amino
acids, phosphate, glycerol, and the building blocks of nucleic acids.
Finding a promising-looking boiling pool on the flanks of an active
volcano, he poured the mixture in and then took samples from the pool
at various intervals for analysis back in the lab at UCSC.

The results were strikingly negative: life did not emerge, no
membranes assembled themselves, and no amino acids combined into
proteins. Instead, the added chemicals quickly vanished, mostly
absorbed by clay particles in the pool. Instead of supporting life,
the bubbling pool had snuffed it out before it began. Later, Deamer
repeated the same experiment at Lassen Volcanic National Park in
northern California, with the same negative result.

What went wrong? The explanation is simple, said Deamer, who presented
his findings in February at a meeting of the Royal Society of London.
Conditions in geothermal springs and similar extreme environments just
do not favor membrane formation, which is inhibited or disrupted by
acidity, dissolved salts, high temperatures, and calcium, iron, and
magnesium ions. Furthermore, mineral surfaces in these clay-lined
pools tend to remove phosphates and organic chemicals from the
solution.

"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."

This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.

Sounds that way to me too. Deamer is a bit of an odd-man-out from
my viewpoint. He understands the importance of lipids and membranes.
But he (rather absurdly, IMHO) is a confirmed believer in a heterotrophic
origin, and one fed by extraterrestrial sources to boot. Very weird.

Unfortunately, Deamer is another one with a pop and adapt scenario:
First magic chemistry pops out of nothing. then protected in vesicles
they are safe to adapt.
But the magic chemistry is fluke chemistry, and the 'safe to adapt' is
another fluke. Again we have a pop and adapt theory, with fluke
squared chance of happening.

Tom, I really wish you would try to understand what other people are
saying, rather than seeking the rhetoric to mock it. But then I really
wish politicians would do that too. And they don't follow my wishes
either.

[snip]

But science ideas need to stand up to tough scrutiny. If they are on
the wrong road, then challenging them helps them. Correct scenarios
will stand up to challenges.

There is no such thing as an intellectual chaqllenge from someone who
doesn't understand what he is challenging.

Looking for a chemical fluke or series of chemical flukes is the
mistake that has caused
all OOL scenarios to be stuck. And if Deamer has real proof, I'll be
the first to congratulate him. But if he's another standing in the way of
a real solution, then I'll point out my concerns.
..
We could get through the OOL impasse if we see life as a reflection of
the environment not a magic event popping out of it.

And that is a perfect example of your lack of understanding and your
preference for being a nuisance over being an honest critic.  As you
know perfectly well, no one is advocating the position that there
was a "magic event".  So what makes you think that it is 'tough
scrutiny' to pretend that other people are talking about magic events.
How, exactly, does a scenario benefit from this 'challenge'.

And inherent in all these scenarios is a 'we are life, we are better than
the low class environment around us - we are outside the environment
cause we are so special." Don't you see that too?

Nope.  Don't see that at all.  What I do see is an honest attempt to
discover just what are the diagnostic features ('special features' if you
prefer) of life.  Some people - including you, I notice - seem to think
that defining life helps to guide the search for its origin.

Whatever toughness I bring to the discussion just helps IMO.

NOT!!!  IMnsHO

Tom Hendricks wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:47 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:
Tom Hendricks wrote:
"We have to face up to the biophysical facts of life," Deamer said.
"Hot, acidic hydrothermal systems are not conducive to self-assembly
processes. But these results serve to guide us to other possible sites
that might be better choices...."
This sounds to me like another blast against the ventists.
As far as I know it is not true, though - e.g.:

``Hydrothermal systems might be the place to look. [...]
  Layer silicates, for example,
  grow and dissolve relatively quickly at moderately high
  temperatures and pressures.''

  -http://www.elementsmagazine.org/Elements_online/ELEM_V1n3.pdf

Deamer is incorrectly generalising from the failure of his bucket
of slime to "self-assembly processes" here.

Membranes are not the only thing that can self-assemble. [...]

But your idea is also  another pop and adapt scenario.

I'm not sure what this is intended to mean.  Most origin of
life scenarios picture it as having /some/ element of chance.

I tend to picture life as a natural self-organising dissipative
structure - rather like whirlpools, flames or crystal growth.

Such things often need an eddy, spark or seed to get started -
but in those other cases these requirements are not excessively
demanding.  How hard is life to get started?

The most relevant data points relating to the magnitude
of the role of chance seem to be:

* Early origin of life on earth;
Must have been easy not a fluke
* No observed life elsewhere with independent origin;
Too soon to tell.
* OOL events not yet reproduced;
Looking for a chemical fluke outside of the sun cycle.
* No real synthetic life yet either;

* Common descent - with no modern genesis events observed;

Apart from the first, these tend to suggest that some
improbable event may well have been required.  If so,
no matter - there was a whole universe and billions
of years for it to happen in.

--
__________
  |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.

I think that "crystal growth" would be a process rather than a thing.
I also think that, in general, crystals themselves are not dissipative
structures - they are stable without any throughput of energy to
maintain them.

That being so, I am not clear about the entity you are referring to as
a dissipative structure.

On Feb 29, 12:41 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:
Tom Hendricks wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:47 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:

Membranes are not the only thing that can self-assemble. [...]
But your idea is also another pop and adapt scenario.
I'm not sure what this is intended to mean.
[...] Tyler says I'm not sure what it means.
What do you not understand?

Tom Hendricks wrote:
On Feb 29, 12:41 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:
Tom Hendricks wrote:
On Feb 27, 12:47 pm, Tim Tyler <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote:
Membranes are not the only thing that can self-assemble. [...]
But your idea is also  another pop and adapt scenario.
I'm not sure what this is intended to mean.
[...] Tyler says I'm not sure what it means.
What do you not understand?

"Pop and adapt" is a Hendricksism.

Re: "Pop and Adapt - defined"http://www.docendi.org/pop-t46915.html?

Crystalline ancestry does have a power supply from the beginning.
It probably derives its energy from the hydrological cycle:

   http://originoflife.net/power_source/

It also has a metabolism by most sensible definitions - though some
definitions of "metabolism" you see make assumptions about cellularity,
or biochemistry, or are unsuitable in other ways - e.g.:

"The body transformation of food into energy."
"the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided for
  vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated."
"All of the processes that occur in the body that turn the food you eat
into energy your body can use."

Anyway, these factors seem to make it a "non-pop" scenario.

--
__________
  |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.

Life is that reaction to the sun heat
cycle (you call it hydrological) that is the most stable.

Tom Hendricks wrote:
Life is that reaction to the sun heat
cycle (you call it hydrological) that is the most stable.

The sun is the energy source for most life on earth,
directly or indirectly.

The other main possibility for an energy source is
geothermal energy - mosly resudual energy from the
earth's formation - which fuels most of the rest
of life on earth via subterranean vents.

Some OOL enthusiasts do think geothermal energy was
important at the origin - but IMO, the idea doesn't
fit in terribly well with the other clues we have.

As to why we have life - and not, say only wind
and rain, dissipating energy gradients on earth,
IMO, that has to do with how benign the environment is:

If life can arise and persist at all,

spread into every nook and cranny, eventually feeding
off every energy gradient it can find - putting up
hydro-electric dams to catch the rain and turbines to
catch the wind - and so on.  If not, we have a
situation like the one on Venus: just wind and rain.
--
__________
  |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.