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, it tends to
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.

"Tim Tyler" <seemy...@cyberspace.org> wrote in messagenews:fqpb7m$u4o$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
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.

No one (except maybe Antonie Muller) thinks that it is
the 'thermal' part of geothermal that supplies the energy.
Instead the hypothesis is the proximate cause of the
energy is chemical deviations from equilibrium.  Of course,
the ultimate cause of these deviations (and the source of the
continuing replenishment of the deviations) is geothermal,
but the causation is very indirect.

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, it tends to
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.

In the Wachtershauser theory, the analogy of the
hydro-electric dam is particularly appropriate.  W_
thinks that the relevant chemical potentials might well
dissipate on their own if life didn't get involved in
erecting barriers against the 'natural' (i.e. non-biological)
dissipation of the potentials - thus establishing monopolistic
control over that resource.

For example, life coats chemically active minerals with
a layer of hydrocarbon - thus keeping the mineral surface
from contact with the ocean's water and ions.  And then life
itself taps the potential in the form of a  trans-membrane
potential discharged by ion transport across the membrane.

"Tim Tyler" <seemysig@cyberspace.org> wrote in message news:fqpb7m$u4o$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

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.

No one (except maybe Antonie Muller) thinks that it is
the 'thermal' part of geothermal that supplies the energy.
Instead the hypothesis is the proximate cause of the
energy is chemical deviations from equilibrium. Of course,
the ultimate cause of these deviations (and the source of the
continuing replenishment of the deviations) is geothermal,
but the causation is very indirect.

This site has a good intro to Wachtershauser's ideas
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DA143EF931A15757C0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Also I note this from the article

''The theory as a whole is this overblown thing which so far has not
been shown to work,'' Dr. Miller said. ''Making acetic acid is sort of
blah to me, that's nothing.'' He doubts that surfaces really make
chemicals more stable, and as for life originating in geothermal
surroundings, he said, ''the high temperature origin of life is out of
the question.''

Tom Hendricks wrote:
This site has a good intro to Wachtershauser's ideas
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4DA143EF931A15757...

[...]

Also I note this from the article

''The theory as a whole is this overblown thing which so far has not
been shown to work,'' Dr. Miller said. ''Making acetic acid is sort of
blah to me, that's nothing.'' He doubts that surfaces really make
chemicals more stable, and as for life originating in geothermal
surroundings, he said, ''the high temperature origin of life is out of
the question.''

Miller is a soup enthusiast.  Mineral surfaces were probably
important, according to a great number of researchers - not
because they produce stability, but because they filter
and constrain molecules - and then catalyse some of their
possible reactions, while inhibiting others.

Films and membranes perform some of these tasks - but
minerals can have programmable catalytic grooves,
making them the most obvious choice for early catalysts.
--
__________
  |im |yler  http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org  Remove lock to reply.

Tim Tyler wrote:

Films and membranes perform some of these tasks - but
minerals can have programmable catalytic grooves,

Should that not have been written with the word "different" (or, at a
pinch, "programming") rather than ..."programmable"...?!?