Has the Origins of Human Life on Earth Been Discovered?

Discussion in 'Science and Technology' started by Dryson, Aug 17, 2021.

  1. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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  2. Santaman

    Santaman Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Of course copper green is an option, toxic as hell but hey, it's green.. :biggrin:
     
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  3. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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  4. oldtrekkie

    oldtrekkie Captain Red Shirt

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    What I mean is Kirk knows that it's not the real Lincoln so why not just saying so to his face? Isn't that what they normally do?
     
  5. oldtrekkie

    oldtrekkie Captain Red Shirt

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    Contrary to other metals, gold is not toxic to the human body (at least not much) which is why it is used in prostheses.
     
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  6. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, it's thought to be safe in its pure form as long as it's not reduced to particles of a few gold atoms in size. Ionic compounds of gold are known to have medical side effects, particularly to the kidneys. Platinum is also not kind to the kidneys and causes nerve damage as I know from personal experience.
     
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  7. dupersuper

    dupersuper Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    He thought he'd get farther by playing along, and was likely correct.
     
  8. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Another possibility for the type of a possible location for the origin of life on Earth - a hot spring rather than a deep sea black smoker or an alkaline vent.
     
  9. StarCruiser

    StarCruiser Commodore Commodore

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    We're already fairly sure life has evolved on Earth more than once.

    My money's on all three possibilities being true.
     
  10. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Are we? Do you have a link? Archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes have substantial differences but the general opinion is that they had a common origin with eukaryotes being formed from an endosymbiosis of the other two, which likely had a common ancestor in a confined system, be it a vent, clay matrix, or gyserite. A big puzzle for eukaryotes is why no intermediate forms appear to have survived. My suspicion is that one or more mass extinctions nearly wiped them out, acting as a great filter.
     
  11. Tiberius

    Tiberius Commodore Commodore

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    I don't think there's any evidence to suggest that the impact itself (or material that was left behind) had any influence on the evolution of primates.

    Also, such a theory would have to explain why there was a 65 million year delay between the impact and the influence on primate evolution that created the hominid branch of primates.
     
  12. Tiberius

    Tiberius Commodore Commodore

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    What's the evidence for this?
     
  13. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

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    If you Google ' Gold in the human body' results show up right away.

    But if you Google 'Gold in the dinosaur body' there aren't any immediate results that display.

    Unless I can find a verified and published article that proves Gold was part of the composition of dinosaurs then I am going to suggest that Gold was not part of their biological composition.

    Gold might also be the element that separates sentient beings from the animals. A certain level of Gold in the body might promote sentience.

    If Gold was present in dinosaurs then based on the mass of a dinosaurs body, a brontosaurus for example, compared to the mass of human, then Gold should be found in all dinosaur excavations.

    I'm not talking about proverbial Gold either. I'm talking about the Gold element.

    Article about gold in bones.
    https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/mar/14/museum-finds-gold-in-the-oldest-bones/

    So there is at least some gold in dinosaurs which means gold would have been on Earth prior to the age of dinosaurs and the wave that carried gold from the Super Nova into the Sol system would still have been present while the dust around the Sun was still forming.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2021
  14. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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  15. StarCruiser

    StarCruiser Commodore Commodore

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    Okay - most of the articles I can find now are (of course) behind paywalls or are rather old:

    https://www.newscientist.com/articl...sily-that-it-started-not-once-but-many-times/

    https://www.newscientist.com/articl...ming-did-life-evolve-on-earth-more-than-once/

    http://astrobiology.com/2017/01/did-life-start-more-than-once-on-earth.html

    This one is debatable, can't find the original article but, don't have an account at the original source so..?

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/feb/15/microbes-earth-tree-of-life
     
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  16. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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    Damn, how will we defeat the Cybermen with out gold!!!!???
     
  17. Nerys Myk

    Nerys Myk A Spock and a smile Premium Member

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  18. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, those are hypotheses. We don't have any strong direct evidence. When you go back four billion years, all you have are ambiguous chemical traces and rock formations. I happen to believe it's possible that life got started more than once but it's also hard to define what constitutes life below a certain level of complexity. If we were to find an existing definitive, separately evolved biosphere on Earth or elsewhere, that would make the scenario a lot more probable.

    ETA:
    Nick Lane and colleagues have a theory where the very distant, very simple ancestor of bacteria and archaea, aka the last universal common ancestor LUCA, probably arose once in the same physical location - his preference an alkaline sea vent - sharing the same RNA/ribosome protein-building mechanisms but developing different cell membranes, proton pumps, enzymes and DNA replicase when they left the vents. Probably, but it's just conceivable that they developed separately. The domain of eukaryotes, such as humans, is a result of the fusion by endosymbiosis of those two domains.

    A Bioenergetic Basis for Membrane Divergence in Archaea and Bacteria (plos.org)
    A Leaky Membrane and a Sodium Transporter at Life’s Great Divergence (plos.org)

    One criticism is that molecular nanomotors such as ATP synthase, which is a molecular assembler driven by a turbopump powered by a proton gradient across a membrane, are staggeringly complex. Such molecules presumably had simpler forms from which they developed but we don't know what those were. A lot of the nanomachinery in cells does look almost engineered but our experience with computer simulation of evolution by natural selection tells us that it is astonishingly good at producing almost baffling complexity.

    The following books by Nick Lane are worth reading on the subject of the origin of life on Earth.

    The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life: Amazon.co.uk: Lane, Nick: 9780393352979: Books
    Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution: Amazon.co.uk: Nick Lane: 9781861978189: Books

    I find his arguments compelling but at this vast distance of time, it's extremely difficult to be sure exactly what happened. We might never know for certain.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2021
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  19. Dryson

    Dryson Commodore Commodore

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    If you take gold out of the equation, which is critical for Red Blood cells to form into their donut shape, then the Red Blood cells of Life on Earth might not have formed properly.

    Improperly formed Red Blood cells carry less oxygen which denigrates the processes which higher functions of the brain need.

    Not enough gold and we would basically be sludge flapping and plopping around on the beaches during the Summertime.

    No speedo necessary.

    The only question is, did the gold, necessary for advanced Red Blood cell development come to Earth in a large asteroid laiden with other elements from the Super Nova or did the gold atoms mix with the material swirling around the Sun that eventually became Earth?

    What is odd is that gold hasn't been found on the Moon or Mars, yet which would make me think the gold came to Earth in preformed roids.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2021
  20. Asbo Zaprudder

    Asbo Zaprudder Admiral Admiral

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    No gold on Mars and the Moon? Not so.

    Facts About Presence of Gold On Moon | My Gold Guide
    Astroquizzical: Is There Gold On Mars? (forbes.com)

    There is gold on the Moon and Mars. It's just that water flowing through underground volcanic systems on the Earth has been better at concentrating precious metals such as gold into veins we can exploit. So we might find veins of gold on Mars but probably not on the Moon. It hasn't been even a secondary objective of the science we have performed on either body.

    Gold & Volcanoes - Using Geology to Find Gold Deposits (goldrushnuggets.com)

    Most of the gold in the universe is thought to be formed from colliding neutron stars and in supernovae. (The writer of the Forbes article appears to be unaware of the former mechanism.) However, it appears to be more abundant than our models tell us it should be. We've yet to work out why that is. It's possible that rapidly rotating stars with intense magnetic fields that explode or collisions with magnetars might be the answer.

    There Is More Gold In The Universe Than Colliding Neutron Stars Can Make (scientificorigin.com)

    Also:
    Why Are Red Blood Cells Biconcave? (reference.com)
    Gold nanoparticle-incorporated human red blood cells (RBCs) for X-ray dynamic imaging - PubMed (nih.gov)
    Note this is done artificially to enhance contrast for dynamic X-ray imaging. I mentioned upthread that gold nanoparticles might potentially damage DNA. Fortunately, red blood cells in humans don't have either nuclear or mitochondrial DNA.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2021