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About LinkBacksWhat do you think origin of life research should focus on, building chemical components of cells or creating something that can self-replicate (perhaps a chemical)?
October 17th, 2009, 03:50 PM
What do you think origin of life research should focus on, building chemical components of cells or creating something that can self-replicate (perhaps a chemical)?
I think they should retrace in reverse the presumed steps from non-life to present DNA based life. Reverse engineering is a very successful method to understand funtional systems. Once this is complete, then they can go about looking for natural processes that might have accomplished these steps.
Why should scientists restrict themselves to one approach?
That's just plain silly.
sure, I'll rephrase then, which do you think will make more progress in understanding the origin of life? Even though they're both important.Originally Posted by spuriousmonkey
self-replicating entities.
Since that is life.
The oldest rocks we have (that aren't clearly meteorite) amazingly suggest organic processes. Since these same rocks formed during the late heavy bombardment, a good sampling of Earth's surface including life if any would have been blown up into space. Nicely fossilized. We might look there.
How do you locate Earth rock on the moon? The Jack Hills rock is bright and orange, yet I guess lunar dust blankets everything. :?
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