done and done

[blissfisherman]

I finished my book. It was pretty ill. Towards the end he got into abiogenesis, which is the springing forth of life from non-life. That was unexpected, and most appreciated. He only explained one possible route it could have gone (RNA, if you're curious), but defended it with such detail that it left me wanting to know about other plausible

Comments

[atomickitty]

i am curious, but have a sneaking suspicion that RNA might be better explained over the phone than in a livejournal comment.

this is ribonuclaic acid, right?

[blissfisherman]

Yes, it's ribonuclaic acid. The basic idea is this: In a big soup-bowl of amino acids and other delicious organic chemicals, all it would take would be one accidental creation of an auto-catalyst for said molecule to come to dominate the world. An auto-catalyst would be a chemical that causes itself to be produced by some reaction without being changed in the process. This would lead to exponential growth of a population. The problem is that you'd need to be both a reasonable protein, so that you can catalyze, and a reasonable replicator, so that you can make faithful copies of yourself. DNA is an excellent replicator, but the whole idea of DNA is that it's just one shape--a double helix. On the other hand, your average run-of-the-mill protein makes a great enzyme, but is basically a lump of aminos, and is not a particularly good replicator. RNA, however, has a little from both in its bag of tricks. This means that it could have conceivably been an enzyme that replicated itself. Once that magical molecule is hit upon once,

mind is blown.

[ahimsa8]

I actually sortof followed that. Whoa. My head hurts now.

Re: mind is blown.

[blissfisherman]

you think your mind is blown...I read six hundred pages of that stuff. It was eye-opening.