/ News
Scientists re-create what may be life's first spark
Scientists in a lab used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.
The researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life.
The findings do not prove that this is how life started on Earth about 4 billion years ago, and some scientists were unimpressed with the results. But the experiment does bolster the long-held theory.
"These findings suggest that the emergence of terrestrial life is not the result of an accident but a direct consequence of the conditions on the primordial Earth and its surroundings," the researchers concluded in the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The laser-zapping produced all four chemical bases needed to make RNA, a simpler relative of DNA, the blueprint of life. From these bases, there are many still-mysterious steps that must happen for life to emerge. But this is a potential starting point in that process.
Scientists have been able to make these RNA bases other ways, using chemical mixes and pressure, but this is the first experiment to test the theory that the energy from a space crash could trigger the crucial chemical reaction, said lead author Svatopluk Civis of the Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague.
Civis said the scientists used a laser almost 500 feet long that for a fraction of a second zapped the chemical soup with an invisible beam. The power was so intense and concentrated that Civis said that for less than a billionth of a second, it was equivalent to the output of a couple of nuclear power plants. It produced what would be around a billion kilowatts of energy for that sliver of time over a fraction of an inch, generating heat of more than 7,600 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers said.
Some of the earliest life on Earth seemed to coincide with a period called the Late Heavy Bombardment, when the solar system's asteroid belt was bigger and stray space rocks hit our planet more often, said study co-author David Nesvorny, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado.
At the time, asteroids were bombarding Earth 10 times more frequently than before or after.
Outside experts were divided about the importance of the experiment.
Steve Benner, a prominent biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Florida, said it is quite relevant because it produced the starting material that would have been around in an early Earth.
But John Sutherland of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, said the amount produced of one base was so small that the results don't seem relevant. Other researchers also downplayed the work.
An alternative theory of early life on Earth says that microbes arrived here from space aboard a comet or an asteroid—a sort of seed theory of life. Civis' work bolsters what would instead be a fire theory of life. It is a theory of both creation and destruction.
For this whole chemical reaction to work, the extreme energy from the asteroid collision would have had to break down molecules into less-complex chemicals, which then could re-form into the more vital combinations. The type of asteroid impact that might have sparked this process also snuffed out the dinosaurs billions of years later, Nesvorny said.
Explore further: New Study Brings Scientists Closer to the Origin of RNA
More information: High-energy chemistry of formamide: A unified mechanism of nucleobase formation, Martin Ferus, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1412072111
Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Source: http://phys.org/news/2014-12-scientists-re-create-life.html
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru