I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.
I am not an Origin of Life Expert, but I know some chemistry.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups...
However, the first biomolecule if formed in space would have the

I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups preparatory to the possibility of division into two copies of
its former self. If -- as seems likely to me -- there were many such
original self-generative molecules created in space then any which
approached more hostile chemical surroundings in the upper atmospheres
of bodies such as earth would have been ruthlessly selected in order
to survive. Furthermore, any of those which were able to survive must
have been able to acquire repair mechanisms and, perhaps later, outer
defences.

Thus, as I see it, life must have been created in outer space but
could only be selected for longer-term survival in an environment with
only the lowest levels of chemical attack. (I am assuming that such
molecules would have been able to survive energy attacks in outer
space or that sufficient numbers would have been created for random
survival.) In this way, such regenerative molecules could have been
selected to survive in the highest levels of the atmosphere and then
gradually, by selection, descend to increasingly active chemical
regimes. By then I would assume that such surviving molecules would
have developed "advanced" procedures of chemical absorption, repair
and defence.

By living in outer space initially, molecules have time and relative
chemico-mechanical safety to gradually develop the faculties of
chemical absorption, regeneration, repair and defence. Whether a few
or a large number of different lifeforms would have survived by the
time they impinged in the much more hostile environment of the upper
atmosphere is something I would not care to guess at. But, presumably,
such molecules would also have added the faculty of producing
mutations (or perhaps this was built in from the beginning), so that
at one and the same time, as molecules penetrated lower levels of the
atmosphere, radiation of potential successors was going on as well as
culling.

What does this mean for those who seek to investigate origins? It
seems to be that instead of looking for precise environmental
conditions on the earth's surface (or near it) we can generalise the
whole situation to astronomical numbers of possibilities. We need not
pay so much attention to the energetics of chemical reactions (because
energy would be available everywhere) but to the spatial
configurations and subsequent stabilities involved when a variety of
simple chemical compounds are joined with one another. It is, of
course, the spatial configurations of chemicals in the living cell
which is the fundamental factor in all its functions. We know that
large numbers of such chemical groups exist in outer space. Joining
them together in spatial-mechanical fashion (taking atomic valencies
into account, of course) has never been attempted but a start may be
possible given today's supercomputers. I think we'd find that an
almost infinite number of initial possibilities could emerge in due
course.

We know that pharmaceutical companies have taken to computer-produced
spatial configuration as a way to find new drugs of great molecular
complexity with specific functions and ultimately find a few
possibilities. Perhaps OOL investigators ought to adopt the same
method at the other end of molecular complexity though, I suggest,
they would find huge numbers of initial possibilities.

Keith Hudson

On Feb 10, 1:21 pm, "Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote:> I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.

I am not an Origin of Life Expert, but I know some chemistry.
An thermal buffering does not have to destroy a molecule, even the
molecule of a living thing, in a nanosecond. If you dissolve a packet
of sugar in water, the sugar molecules will last hours.

When they are
destroyed, it will probably be because some living thing (a yeast or
bacterium?) has managed to metabolize it. The prebiotic environment by
definition would be empty of living things, including bacteria and
yeast. Therefore, many molecules that would be considered fragile in
our current environment would be able to last a fairly long time in
the prebiotic environment.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups...

However, the first biomolecule if formed in space would have the
problem of not being near any chemical groups. Therefore, it would
have a hard time bulking itself up with chemical groups. It would have
to wait around a very long time before anything came around that it
could use.

During that time, it is subject to loads of threats some of
which wouldn't be on earth.
Two unearthly threats to the space biomolecule:
1) Cosmic rays: rapidly moving protons and other nucleii that would
shatter the delicate biomolecule.
2) Slow moving atoms such as hydrogen: Highly corrosive and the most
common materials in the universe.

I go for theories where the biomolecule is adsorbed to a surface.
The surface would stablize the biomolecule, and act as a trap for
chemical groups. Furthermore, the surface should be close to a region
where high and low temperatures mix. Only temperature gradients can
generate the chemical groups the biomolecule would need to "bulk up."
I think that that is what the conventional wisdom is saying right now.
However, I am NOT an OOL expert.

Keith Hudson wrote:
I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.

This problem is what I term, "pop and adapt" . Its the false
assumption
that life can pop up and then leisurely adapt to the environment. And
for
that part of your argument, I agree. I don't think it can happen.

But there is another way. If every step of the process was a reaction
to the environment then no matter where the process to life was,
it would already fit the environment. That's why it would continue
to exist and continue to develop.

Space origin has some major problems that you would have to
address. Perhaps the biggest is no water,
Also in space you would not have the cyclical heat cycle that would
allow for
both variation and stability enough to develop - thus no HZ, habitable
zone.
Instead you would have constant UV which is yet another major problem.
Parts may well have developed in space, but IMO the bulk of
development
was on earth and was in reaction to the sun/heat cycle, and
adaptation
to the sun/heat cycle on earth - not in space.

On Feb 10, 1:21 pm, "Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.
I am not an Origin of Life Expert, but I know some chemistry.
An thermal buffering does not have to destroy a molecule, even the
molecule of a living thing, in a nanosecond. If you dissolve a packet
of sugar in water, the sugar molecules will last hours. When they are
destroyed, it will probably be because some living thing (a yeast or
bacterium?) has managed to metabolize it. The prebiotic environment by
definition would be empty of living things, including bacteria and
yeast. Therefore, many molecules that would be considered fragile in
our current environment would be able to last a fairly long time in
the prebiotic environment.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups...
However, the first biomolecule if formed in space would have the
problem of not being near any chemical groups. Therefore, it would
have a hard time bulking itself up with chemical groups. It would have
to wait around a very long time before anything came around that it
could use. During that time, it is subject to loads of threats some of
which wouldn't be on earth.
Two unearthly threats to the space biomolecule:
1) Cosmic rays: rapidly moving protons and other nucleii that would
shatter the delicate biomolecule.
2) Slow moving atoms such as hydrogen: Highly corrosive and the most
common materials in the universe.

I go for theories where the biomolecule is adsorbed to a surface.
The surface would stablize the biomolecule, and act as a trap for
chemical groups. Furthermore, the surface should be close to a region
where high and low temperatures mix. Only temperature gradients can
generate the chemical groups the biomolecule would need to "bulk up."
I think that that is what the conventional wisdom is saying right now.
However, I am NOT an OOL expert.

KH:
I am thinking in terms of very large biomolecules which would be
susceptible.
Alright. A molecule of nylon several inches long, emersed in

But we already know that at any one time there are scores, hundreds
(and probably, in my view, tens of thousands), of organic groups/
molecules in space.
The most common material in the universe is bare nucleii. Bare

Life molecules orbiting around planetary bodies would also experience
temperature gradients from the central star.
True. Light from the high temperature star can be absorbed by a

On Feb 12, 5:41 am, drosen0...@wahoo.com wrote:

On Feb 10, 1:21 pm, "Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote:> I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.

Two unearthly threats to the space biomolecule:
1) Cosmic rays: rapidly moving protons and other nucleii that would
shatter the delicate biomolecule.
2) Slow moving atoms such as hydrogen: Highly corrosive and the most
common materials in the universe.

drosen0...@wahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:eqoun0$2rfu$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
On Feb 10, 1:21 pm, "Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.
I am not an Origin of Life Expert, but I know some chemistry.
An thermal buffering does not have to destroy a molecule, even the
molecule of a living thing, in a nanosecond. If you dissolve a packet
of sugar in water, the sugar molecules will last hours. When they are
destroyed, it will probably be because some living thing (a yeast or
bacterium?) has managed to metabolize it. The prebiotic environment by
definition would be empty of living things, including bacteria and
yeast. Therefore, many molecules that would be considered fragile in
our current environment would be able to last a fairly long time in
the prebiotic environment.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups...
However, the first biomolecule if formed in space would have the
problem of not being near any chemical groups. Therefore, it would
have a hard time bulking itself up with chemical groups. It would have
to wait around a very long time before anything came around that it
could use. During that time, it is subject to loads of threats some of
which wouldn't be on earth.
Two unearthly threats to the space biomolecule:
1) Cosmic rays: rapidly moving protons and other nucleii that would
shatter the delicate biomolecule.
2) Slow moving atoms such as hydrogen: Highly corrosive and the most
common materials in the universe.

I go for theories where the biomolecule is adsorbed to a surface.
The surface would stablize the biomolecule, and act as a trap for
chemical groups. Furthermore, the surface should be close to a region
where high and low temperatures mix. Only temperature gradients can
generate the chemical groups the biomolecule would need to "bulk up."
I think that that is what the conventional wisdom is saying right now.
However, I am NOT an OOL expert.

Neither am I. I don't think that there ARE any experts, only people
who are willing to speculate. Some of those speculations come from
people who know nothing about chemistry - people like the OP. Your
insertion of some chemical realism into this thread is welcomed.

As you point out, the chemistry of space, or of ice particles in space,
is a completely different chemistry than the chemistry of solutions
and wetted surfaces here on earth. There you have ultra-high energy
'buffeting' and the chemistry of free radicals (such as hydrogen atoms).
Here, there is mostly mild thermal agitation and ions stabilized by
interactions with liquid water. Completely different. What works out
there (if anything does) won't work here. The idea that life came here
from space is a non-starter. NASA admits that they promote the idea
only to gain funding. But they are now ceasing to fund it because of
the Bush reprioritization, so serious research on the origin here on
Earth will be able to continue without distraction (much of it taking
place outside the US).- Hide quoted text -

On Feb 13, 4:43 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
drosen0...@wahoo.com> wrote in messagenews:eqoun0$2rfu$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
On Feb 10, 1:21 pm, "Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote:
I wonder whether the OOL experts in this group would care to comment
on a speculation of mine. This is that the very first molecule capable
of self-generation would have been vulnerable to thermal buffeting
from the moment of formation. In any environment on earth I cannot see
how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond.
I am not an Origin of Life Expert, but I know some chemistry.
An thermal buffering does not have to destroy a molecule, even the
molecule of a living thing, in a nanosecond. If you dissolve a packet
of sugar in water, the sugar molecules will last hours. When they are
destroyed, it will probably be because some living thing (a yeast or
bacterium?) has managed to metabolize it. The prebiotic environment by
definition would be empty of living things, including bacteria and
yeast. Therefore, many molecules that would be considered fragile in
our current environment would be able to last a fairly long time in
the prebiotic environment.

It seems to me therefore that the first molecule must have formed in
space. There, relatively free from gross mechanical disruption it
would have the time to bulk itself upwards by adding further chemical
groups...
However, the first biomolecule if formed in space would have the
problem of not being near any chemical groups. Therefore, it would
have a hard time bulking itself up with chemical groups. It would have
to wait around a very long time before anything came around that it
could use. During that time, it is subject to loads of threats some of
which wouldn't be on earth.
Two unearthly threats to the space biomolecule:
1) Cosmic rays: rapidly moving protons and other nucleii that would
shatter the delicate biomolecule.
2) Slow moving atoms such as hydrogen: Highly corrosive and the most
common materials in the universe.

I go for theories where the biomolecule is adsorbed to a surface.
The surface would stablize the biomolecule, and act as a trap for
chemical groups. Furthermore, the surface should be close to a region
where high and low temperatures mix. Only temperature gradients can
generate the chemical groups the biomolecule would need to "bulk up."
I think that that is what the conventional wisdom is saying right now.
However, I am NOT an OOL expert.

Neither am I. I don't think that there ARE any experts, only people
who are willing to speculate. Some of those speculations come from
people who know nothing about chemistry - people like the OP. Your
insertion of some chemical realism into this thread is welcomed.

As you point out, the chemistry of space, or of ice particles in space,
is a completely different chemistry than the chemistry of solutions
and wetted surfaces here on earth. There you have ultra-high energy
'buffeting' and the chemistry of free radicals (such as hydrogen atoms).
Here, there is mostly mild thermal agitation and ions stabilized by
interactions with liquid water. Completely different. What works out
there (if anything does) won't work here. The idea that life came here
from space is a non-starter. NASA admits that they promote the idea
only to gain funding. But they are now ceasing to fund it because of
the Bush reprioritization, so serious research on the origin here on
Earth will be able to continue without distraction (much of it taking
place outside the US).- Hide quoted text -

KH:

Of course, what works out there wouldn't work out here! All I am
suggesting as a possibility is that just as higher lifeforms on earth
could only evolve by building onto simpler lifeforms that could only
have evolved in quite different geological/climatological periods then
the same could be said for the very earliest forms of life that might
have needed a whole series of disparate graded environments in which
to evolve quite different functions in an additive way. I'm not quite
sure what you mean by "OP" but if it means "original poster"

then I'll
just mention that I am in fact a chemist.

As to your fixated, earth-
bound view about OOL I will merely quote Sir Peter Medawar: "I cannot
give give any scientist of any age better advice than this: The
intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing
on whether it is true or not." Or doesn't his opinion count because it
was said by a non-American in a "place outside the US"? Remember, too,
that much of the excellence of American science has been due to the
substantial recruitment of the most eminent European scientists in the
past 70 years or so (and, in more recent years, on the basis of the
authorship of papers in the heavyweight physics and biology journals,
to some of the most brilliant Asian students).

NASA admits that they promote the idea
only to gain funding. But they are now ceasing to fund it because of
the Bush reprioritization, so serious research on the origin here on
Earth will be able to continue without distraction (much of it taking
place outside the US).
I don't see how NASA is misleading the public in so far as they

"Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote in messagenews:eqvlj7$2eor$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
On Feb 13, 4:43 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:

Of course, what works out there wouldn't work out here! All I am
suggesting as a possibility is that just as higher lifeforms on earth
could only evolve by building onto simpler lifeforms that could only
have evolved in quite different geological/climatological periods then
the same could be said for the very earliest forms of life that might
have needed a whole series of disparate graded environments in which
to evolve quite different functions in an additive way. I'm not quite
sure what you mean by "OP" but if it means "original poster"

I does.

then I'll
just mention that I am in fact a chemist.

A chemist who "cannot see how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond."

Well, I must admit that your claim regarding your profession surprises me.

On Feb 15, 9:11 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
"Keith Hudson" <keithhud...@clara.co.uk> wrote in messagenews:eqvlj7$2eor$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
On Feb 13, 4:43 pm, "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmene...@sbcglobal.net
wrote:

KH:

Of course, what works out there wouldn't work out here! All I am
suggesting as a possibility is that just as higher lifeforms on earth
could only evolve by building onto simpler lifeforms that could only
have evolved in quite different geological/climatological periods then
the same could be said for the very earliest forms of life that might
have needed a whole series of disparate graded environments in which
to evolve quite different functions in an additive way. I'm not quite
sure what you mean by "OP" but if it means "original poster"

I does.

then I'll
just mention that I am in fact a chemist.

A chemist who "cannot see how it would not be torn apart within a nanosecond."

Well, I must admit that your claim regarding your profession surprises me.

KH:
Perhaps it was the difference in the use of irony on both sides of the
pond that confused you.

By "nanosecond" I meant that any original
biomolecule with close neighbours (as in aqueous or solid conditions
in or near the earth's surface) might not have sufficient time in
which to reorganise itself in order to self-generate.

Powerful ions in
atmospheric conditions, while undoubtedly being destructive, also have
prolific abilities to nucleate particles in vast numbers. The coming
2007 CERN experiments in which different atmospheres (corresponding to
different periods in earth's geology) will be treated to powerful
radiation and might give clues as to just what molecular
conglomerations can be produced. If, as seems likely to me, early
atmospheres were highly stratified with little intermixing (unlike
now, of course) there's no knowing what "species" of molecules might
not be produced at different levels, particularly as a constant "rain"
of new atoms were being created by the incoming cosmic rays.