i find this intellectually stimulating

[Homer_simpson]

DNA is one of the least understood strucures in biology, despite our understanding of it there's still a somewhat 'magical' aspect to it(until someday we understand how it came to be). it is the universal language of life which is read the same way in any living cell(minor known exceptions).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fOXt4MrOM
and offcourse this one makes one feel insignifant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgCf5G9WyE&feature=PlayList&p=B24E24D64F8CD1C0&index=0

i find these 2 videos intriguing that's why i thought they would be worth sharing. hope u also enjoy this =)

[Dan]

Homer_simpson @ 10th May 2009, 11:13 pm wrote:

despite our understanding of it there's still a somewhat 'magical' aspect to it(until someday we understand how it came to be)

abiogenesis



but yes, it is intresting.

[CodeMonkey2000]

Homer_simpson @ Sun May 10, 2009 11:13 pm wrote:

DNA is one of the least understood strucures in biology, despite our understanding of it there's still a somewhat 'magical' aspect to it(until someday we understand how it came to be).

But we know a lot of cool things about DNA pretty well. There is some "magic" to it regarding how the enzymes know where to start transcription, translation, meiosis and cell differentiation, but I'm sure it will eventually relate back to KMT

[Homer_simpson]

its true there's been experiments where they isolate materials from early earth such as methane , water,oxygen and nitrogen and with electrical charges they managed to synthesize amino acids how ever DNA and complex functional protein structures have amazingly complex functionalities for example the enzyme that replicates the dna molecule actually proofreads the new stand after synthesizing it. I highly doubt that early life was just a random occurrence but that's just speculation.
also what is KMT?

[Dan]

Homer_simpson @ 11th May 2009, 11:32 am wrote:

I highly doubt that early life was just a random occurrence but that's just speculation.

That realy depedns on how you define random. Everything needed to be just right, the right modeules needed to come in to contact with each other and there needed to be the right energey source. If you consider how big the univerise is and how many planets there are, you are almost garidtened it will happen at least once. If you have somthing that has a low proablity but do it enought it an almost infinite amount of times (or at least a very very vary large number) you are prity much garuaninted that it will happen. So yes you can apply a probality to it happening on a given planet, but it's rather meaningless.

The fact that we happen to be in a place that had the excact condutions needed for life dose not prove anything as if we where not we would not be talking about it, as it would have not happened on erath.


There have be tests in labs that have sucusfely recreated the basic beginings of life (Miller Experiments) and once you get to somthing replicating with the chance of mutations evoultion starts kicking in. The first life forms would have very simple protien structures and DNA so you are not getting an acurite picture by basing it on how things are now after millions of years of evoultion.


Edit: KMT = Kinetic Molecular Theory

[CodeMonkey2000]

Funfact: the only thing DNA codes for (that we know of) is the synthesis proteins.

And imo everyone should take a few biology courses. I know we suck at it, but there are a lot of really cool things to learn.

[Homer_simpson]

Dan @ Mon May 11, 2009 3:25 pm wrote:

Homer_simpson @ 11th May 2009, 11:32 am wrote:

I highly doubt that early life was just a random occurrence but that's just speculation.

That realy depedns on how you define random. Everything needed to be just right, the right modeules needed to come in to contact with each other and there needed to be the right energey source. If you consider how big the univerise is and how many planets there are, you are almost garidtened it will happen at least once. If you have somthing that has a low proablity but do it enought it an almost infinite amount of times (or at least a very very vary large number) you are prity much garuaninted that it will happen. So yes you can apply a probality to it happening on a given planet, but it's rather meaningless.

The fact that we happen to be in a place that had the excact condutions needed for life dose not prove anything as if we where not we would not be talking about it, as it would have not happened on erath.


There have be tests in labs that have sucusfely recreated the basic beginings of life (Miller Experiments) and once you get to somthing replicating with the chance of mutations evoultion starts kicking in. The first life forms would have very simple protien structures and DNA so you are not getting an acurite picture by basing it on how things are now after millions of years of evoultion.


Edit: KMT = Kinetic Molecular Theory

well it seems to me that it was highly unlikly that a random collision of molecules created a series of extremely complex proteins and dna sequence as even the simplest prokaryotes have tens of thousands nucleotide sequences in their DNA plus complex enzymes such as dnapolymerase and also early forms of ribosomes are an absolute necessity for cellular function. how ever there is theories of life before prokaryots(Protobiont) but even still it seems to me that it was highly unlikely a perfect set of molecular collisions created the highly specific conditions needed for these beings to come to existance. it is also speculated that mitochondrion used to be independent organisms at one point since they possess their own specific dna codes.

CodeMonkey2000 wrote:

Funfact the only thing DNA codes for (that we know of) is the synthesis proteins.

it's true that DNA strands are translated into aminoacids and later on to protein but it is the complex manner in which this is achieved that's truly amazing for example DNA is made of the coding section(exons) and "junk DNA"(introns 90% of human dna), it was common belief that these introns had little to no function but it has recently been discovered that these introns hold genes of our ancestors that are "turned off" also these introns seem to be involved in complex chemical pathways that regulate expression of genes by creating bonding sites for regulatory enzymes among many functions yet to be found.

it just amazez me that such a seemingly simple molecule has such wide variety of functions.




but i must say biology is a very neat topic to read on for as long as you dont have to do an academic test.

[CodeMonkey2000]

Homer_simpson @ Tue May 12, 2009 12:06 am wrote:

well it seems to me that it was highly unlikly that a random collision of molecules created a series of extremely complex proteins and dna sequence as even the simplest prokaryotes have tens of thousands nucleotide sequences in their DNA plus complex enzymes such as dnapolymerase and also early forms of ribosomes are an absolute necessity for cellular function. how ever there is theories of life before prokaryots(Protobiont) but even still it seems to me that it was highly unlikely a perfect set of molecular collisions created the highly specific conditions needed for these beings to come to existance. it is also speculated that mitochondrion used to be independent organisms at one point since they possess their own specific dna codes.

Have you ever taken a biology course? Many molecular structures in biology relate back to KMT. DNA and ribosomes are molecular structures, it is obvious that KMT would play a large role in terms of how they work. Prokaryote cells seem simple when compared to eukaryote cells. In reality, they are very complex, they have survived (and have been subjected to evolution) for millions of years. In fact, I believe that the early forms of life where extremely simple chemical reactions, composing of many of the building blocks of modern life. There have been many experiments done, to see how these structures could have arose. They simulated the theoretical conditions for a primordial soup and found that many of the biological structures (such as nucleotides and the phospholipid bilayer) did occur naturally. But these conditions seem specific, making life unlikely doesn't it? Well just because something is unlikely, doesn't mean it's impossible. But if you really analyze it, life never occurring in the universe is even more unlikely than occurring.

Read up on the Law of Truly Large Numbers. That I find more intellectually stimulating. Wouldn't you agree?



Another funfact: All the DNA in the mitochondria was inherited from solely your mother.

[ecookman]

CodeMonkey2000 @ Mon May 11, 2009 5:47 pm wrote:

Funfact: the only thing DNA codes for (that we know of) is the synthesis proteins.

And imo everyone should take a few biology courses. I know we suck at it, but there are a lot of really cool things to learn.

i took my grade 9 and 10 bio and that is the last time i will ever do bio....IT IS SOOOOO BORING honestly not 1 interesting thing

[Homer_simpson]

CodeMonkey2000 @ Wed May 13, 2009 3:36 pm wrote:

Have you ever taken a biology course? Many molecular structures in biology relate back to KMT. DNA and ribosomes are molecular structures, it is obvious that KMT would play a large role in terms of how they work. Prokaryote cells seem simple when compared to eukaryote cells. In reality, they are very complex, they have survived (and have been subjected to evolution) for millions of years. In fact, I believe that the early forms of life where extremely simple chemical reactions, composing of many of the building blocks of modern life. There have been many experiments done, to see how these structures could have arose. They simulated the theoretical conditions for a primordial soup and found that many of the biological structures (such as nucleotides and the phospholipid bilayer) did occur naturally. But these conditions seem specific, making life unlikely doesn't it? Well just because something is unlikely, doesn't mean it's impossible. But if you really analyze it, life never occurring in the universe is even more unlikely than occurring.

Read up on the Law of Truly Large Numbers. That I find more intellectually stimulating. Wouldn't you agree?



Another funfact: All the DNA in the mitochondria was inherited from solely your mother.

i'm a biochem student but i dont claim to know much cuz i'm still first year. but i also speculate that random molecular interactions are the most plausible idea for the start of life, but the fact is the simplest of life forms were'nt made from molecules with 10 specific bond or even 100, you need thousands of molecules to be perfectly and functionaly aligned a single ribosome is a pefect alignment of 100s molecules, but then again just the fact that our earth- a peace of rock- is so perfectly distant from the sun-a ball of helium and hydrogen- and our moon is perfectly balancing the earth is an amazing phenomenon it makes the creation of life on this planet not so far fetched, but we still haven't been able to create conditions to produce life in experiments.

ecookman wrote:

CodeMonkey2000 @ Mon May 11, 2009 5:47 pm wrote:

Funfact: the only thing DNA codes for (that we know of) is the synthesis proteins.

And imo everyone should take a few biology courses. I know we suck at it, but there are a lot of really cool things to learn.

i took my grade 9 and 10 bio and that is the last time i will ever do bio....IT IS SOOOOO BORING honestly not 1 interesting thing

i used to hate bio also but after a while it got to me.


edit:http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/jeffares_poole.html
interesting article they suggest RNA organisms were the early life forms.