Behold, our ancestors.

[Jasper]

That bacteria is possibly the most awesome thing on the planet.  Not so much the feeding off radiation (I've seen that in the fungii species that were determined to do it in the wake of the chenobyl discovery), but in the sheer robustness of the organism, does it need any organic chemicals in its enviornment at all to survive?

However, why oh WHY do people have to go on and on and on about seeding from outer space?

I was thinking more along the lines of using it to seed other planets than it having been seeded on ours.

0_0

You're in SANE. 

I like that.

[Kai]

That bacteria is possibly the most awesome thing on the planet.  Not so much the feeding off radiation (I've seen that in the fungii species that were determined to do it in the wake of the chenobyl discovery), but in the sheer robustness of the organism, does it need any organic chemicals in its enviornment at all to survive?

However, why oh WHY do people have to go on and on and on about seeding from outer space?

I was thinking more along the lines of using it to seed other planets than it having been seeded on ours.

You were thinking that. Unfortunately, most of the articles I looked at were going for the whole panspermogenesis angle, or whatever they call it. Your idea is cool. Their idea needs Occam's Razor.

And the WORST part about the whole pangeospermowhatever (aliens seeded the planet!) is that it puts people in the mindset that abiogenesis is something other, something out there, out in space *gestures towards some imaginary celestial object*making it very dismissive. Since life began elsewhere we don't have need to explore /how/ and what and really try to figure out the where on this planet. Thats dismissal that makes things completely boring.

I also don't understand how it is more likely that life came from elsewhere, especially considering the vast distances in space, the improbability of life escaping a planetary atmosphere and in the minute form of a bacteria, somehow crossing light years worth of space, or at the smallest, billions of miles and somehow ending up on earth. I don't understand how that is more likely. Maybe someone here can explain it to me?

[Vene]

And the WORST part about the whole pangeospermowhatever (aliens seeded the planet!) is that it puts people in the mindset that abiogenesis is something other, something out there, out in space *gestures towards some imaginary celestial object*making it very dismissive. Since life began elsewhere we don't have need to explore /how/ and what and really try to figure out the where on this planet. Thats dismissal that makes things completely boring.

Exactly.  Also it doesn't answer any questions, it just relocates the problem for no reason.  Very complicated biomolecules have been shown to spontaneously form in the right conditions.  And in conditions that resemble early Earth. (link)

I also don't understand how it is more likely that life came from elsewhere, especially considering the vast distances in space, the improbability of life escaping a planetary atmosphere and in the minute form of a bacteria, somehow crossing light years worth of space, or at the smallest, billions of miles and somehow ending up on earth. I don't understand how that is more likely. Maybe someone here can explain it to me?

I don't know how it's more likely either.  It seems to me that for something to survive in space makes it ill-suited to survive on Earth.

[Kai]

And the WORST part about the whole pangeospermowhatever (aliens seeded the planet!) is that it puts people in the mindset that abiogenesis is something other, something out there, out in space *gestures towards some imaginary celestial object*making it very dismissive. Since life began elsewhere we don't have need to explore /how/ and what and really try to figure out the where on this planet. Thats dismissal that makes things completely boring.

Exactly.  Also it doesn't answer any questions, it just relocates the problem for no reason.  Very complicated biomolecules have been shown to spontaneously form in the right conditions.  And in conditions that resemble early Earth. (link)

I love you. <3 For that link, specifically. Right there you have all the necessary components for ribonucleic acid chains. Its very likely that the first replicating nucleic acids were RNA, because DNA requires transcription and seems to be a much more derived process. However, RNA does not require transcription for the coding of proteins, it IS the transcription for modern genetic processes.

I also don't understand how it is more likely that life came from elsewhere, especially considering the vast distances in space, the improbability of life escaping a planetary atmosphere and in the minute form of a bacteria, somehow crossing light years worth of space, or at the smallest, billions of miles and somehow ending up on earth. I don't understand how that is more likely. Maybe someone here can explain it to me?

I don't know how it's more likely either.  It seems to me that for something to survive in space makes it ill-suited to survive on Earth.

That and, we have examples of organisms that seem less derived, more basal, than the hypothetical space seed would have been. If something like D. audaxivator were the seeds that started life on this planet, then where the hell did Archaea come from?

[Kai]

Oh FUCK I missed the part where they said "hydrothermal systems".  (see signature for reference)

[Requia ☣]

Hmm, anybody have access to the research paper.  Trying to figure out what its genetic relationship to other organisms, as well as if its process for absorbing radition is similar to photosythesis or the melatonin method the fungi in chernobyl appear to use.

[Vene]

And the WORST part about the whole pangeospermowhatever (aliens seeded the planet!) is that it puts people in the mindset that abiogenesis is something other, something out there, out in space *gestures towards some imaginary celestial object*making it very dismissive. Since life began elsewhere we don't have need to explore /how/ and what and really try to figure out the where on this planet. Thats dismissal that makes things completely boring.

Exactly.  Also it doesn't answer any questions, it just relocates the problem for no reason.  Very complicated biomolecules have been shown to spontaneously form in the right conditions.  And in conditions that resemble early Earth. (link)

I love you. <3 For that link, specifically. Right there you have all the necessary components for ribonucleic acid chains. Its very likely that the first replicating nucleic acids were RNA, because DNA requires transcription and seems to be a much more derived process. However, RNA does not require transcription for the coding of proteins, it IS the transcription for modern genetic processes.

That's why I like the RNA world hypothesis.

[Kai]

Hmm, anybody have access to the research paper.  Trying to figure out what its genetic relationship to other organisms, as well as if its process for absorbing radition is similar to photosythesis or the melatonin method the fungi in chernobyl appear to use.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/322/5899/275.pdf

Does that work for you? This is the original article, I believe.

[Requia ☣]

It wants money.  10$ per article.

[Kai]

It wants money.  10$ per article.

I've got a university connection that allows me to download most of these articles for free. Sorry.

[Vene]

   My university hates Science.

[Triple Zero]

I was reading recently from one of those books I've been gabbing about on here, Reinventing the Sacred. Kauffman was talking about some experiments with self replicating RNA molecules and how when you reach a threshold complexity of the molecules themselves, once the chains have a codon sequence that can independently put proteins together, then all kinds of crazy shit starts happening. Its amazing and exciting stuff, wish I could back it up with some journal articles.

is that the same Kauffman that thought up binary Kauffman networks?

i learned about them in Computational Science class, it was some heavily (and i mean extremely) simplified model of genes decoding into proteins causing other genes to be decoded, or preventing them, inhibiting and exhibiting. It was basically a graph (network) of binary vertices (on or off) with boolean operations on the nodes. Initialized randomly and then they let it run. On a computer you can simulate this really quickly and then discover that such networks will develop cycli, but several of them, depending on the initialization, being some kind of attractors of the system.

the concept was a really big mindfuck for me, in ways that are slightly too complicated to explain without having five pages of thread before you see my point (sorry).

i'm ashamed to say that, however simple, i've never coded a Kauffman network to play with for myself.

[Kai]

I was reading recently from one of those books I've been gabbing about on here, Reinventing the Sacred. Kauffman was talking about some experiments with self replicating RNA molecules and how when you reach a threshold complexity of the molecules themselves, once the chains have a codon sequence that can independently put proteins together, then all kinds of crazy shit starts happening. Its amazing and exciting stuff, wish I could back it up with some journal articles.

is that the same Kauffman that thought up binary Kauffman networks?

i learned about them in Computational Science class, it was some heavily (and i mean extremely) simplified model of genes decoding into proteins causing other genes to be decoded, or preventing them, inhibiting and exhibiting. It was basically a graph (network) of binary vertices (on or off) with boolean operations on the nodes. Initialized randomly and then they let it run. On a computer you can simulate this really quickly and then discover that such networks will develop cycli, but several of them, depending on the initialization, being some kind of attractors of the system.

the concept was a really big mindfuck for me, in ways that are slightly too complicated to explain without having five pages of thread before you see my point (sorry).

i'm ashamed to say that, however simple, i've never coded a Kauffman network to play with for myself.

There was this whole chapter about boolean operations and binary and stuff. I understood about a quarter of it.

[Triple Zero]

basically, the cycli are yet another example of emergence happening in complex systems. you got a network with lots (hundreds) of simple boolean operations, yet none of them really explains on its own why the network in state X returns to exactly the same state after, say, 17523 iterations. unless you initialize it to state Y, when it gets caught in a loop of just 3125 iterations.

the cycli could be likened to cycli in a cell, like the reproduction cell splitting cycle or such.

one of the things i got from it was an immense respect for the biologists trying to figure out these things in actual cells, which are a lot more complicated (okay, actually instead of respect i got a very distinct feeling of hopelessness, but apparently they still try).

another likeness would be the heart, which is a huge network of all sorts of little muscles inhibiting and exhibiting eachother. usually it's stuck in a really big cycle that makes it pump around blood properly. but when something goes wrong, it can get stuck in a smaller cycle, which is called fibrillating. fortunately the big cycle is a rather strong attractor in the system (i say fortunately, but of course it's because of better fitness for the organism not luck), and that's why defibrilating works, you give the thing a big electric kick, re-initializing it to some semi-random state, and hope this time it gets caught in the big cycle again.

before you jump on me for comparing it like that, know that it is of course a gross over-simplification (yet when i explained it to a medical student friend of mine, after explaining for an hour how such a network works, and learning a lot about how the heart works, she did agree with the similarity, though).

[Kai]

basically, the cycli are yet another example of emergence happening in complex systems. you got a network with lots (hundreds) of simple boolean operations, yet none of them really explains on its own why the network in state X returns to exactly the same state after, say, 17523 iterations. unless you initialize it to state Y, when it gets caught in a loop of just 3125 iterations.

the cycli could be likened to cycli in a cell, like the reproduction cell splitting cycle or such.

one of the things i got from it was an immense respect for the biologists trying to figure out these things in actual cells, which are a lot more complicated (okay, actually instead of respect i got a very distinct feeling of hopelessness, but apparently they still try).

another likeness would be the heart, which is a huge network of all sorts of little muscles inhibiting and exhibiting eachother. usually it's stuck in a really big cycle that makes it pump around blood properly. but when something goes wrong, it can get stuck in a smaller cycle, which is called fibrillating. fortunately the big cycle is a rather strong attractor in the system (i say fortunately, but of course it's because of better fitness for the organism not luck), and that's why defibrilating works, you give the thing a big electric kick, re-initializing it to some semi-random state, and hope this time it gets caught in the big cycle again.

before you jump on me for comparing it like that, know that it is of course a gross over-simplification (yet when i explained it to a medical student friend of mine, after explaining for an hour how such a network works, and learning a lot about how the heart works, she did agree with the similarity, though).

No no! I liked the heart example. The whole pacemaker system is so complex that I don't remember how it works exactly anymore. I do know it works independent of the brain, except for the speed of pace which is set by neurotransmitters. The steadyness of the pace, meaning the syncronization is this big cycle like you said with cardiac muscle in coordination by the pacemaker cells. If it gets stuck out of cycle, or shuts down for whatever reason, you have to reboot it and hope it catches the sync again (by electric shock in most cases, though CPR can do it too). I thought it was good.

Yeah, I'm so stuck on emergence after reading that book now. If you liked that in class you really should read it, prolly would understand it better than I do too.