The fundamental things apply ... as Life goes by

[Graybeard]

Protozoa:

Amoeba:

In the slime and gloop at the bottom of stagnant pools lives a certain specially interesting kind of protoazoan ... the Amoeba. This is a very simple animal indeed .. as primitive as any.

The minute viscous particle of protoplasm which forms its body is irregular in outline. It may contract into a tiny ball. It may become star shaped. it may elongate. It may flatten. Short, blunt finger like projections called pseudopods, extend from the central body mass and are constantly changing, slowly pushing out or drawing in.

This critter is a SINGLE CELL. The body of the Amoeba has no fixed outline. It is a cell without a wall. The substance it is made of is protoplasm (wiki) semi-liquid and colourless.

The changes in form of the body are the moving of the Amoeba. By very close watching it can be seen that the Amoeba changes position. But it has no legs, no scales, no wings, no hooks ... in fact it has no organ of locomotion. It just MOVES. It has no muscles because muscles are made of contractile cells and the Amoeba is only a SINGLE cell. But it is a contractile cell and it can do what the complex muscles of multicelled animals can do. Indeed ... it was the forerunner.

If one of the finger like projections of the Amoeba come in contact with some other microscopic animal or substance the soft body of the Amoeba will be seen to press against it and soon the animal or plant becomes sunken into the cell of the Amoeba, into the protoplasm and enclosed by it. This is how the Amoeba EATS.

Any part of its body can become its mouth, take in and digest food. if it cannot be digested it is thrust out again.

The Amoeba can BREATHE. It takes in thru its body oxygen, which is mixed with water and it gives off CO2 (a carbonic acid gas) which is identical to what the horse does which has exquisitely developed organs of respiration.

The Amoeba has no lungs or gills.

If the Amoeba bumps into a sand grain or other hard like substance, not suitable for food, it recoils immediately and floats away. The Amoeba FEELS.

It shows the effect of stimulation. its movements can be changed, stopped, or induced by mechanical means, or chemical stimuli, or by temperature change.

The Amoeba is IRRITABLE. This is the first sensation in its simplest form, the basis for all future emotions and feelings.

If food is plentiful, the Amoeba grows fat ... but no Amoeba becomes obese ... because as soon as its body mass reaches a certain size a remarkable phenomenon occurs. An Amoeba which has grown for some time, contracts all its finger like processes and constricts itself. This constriction slowly pressing inward causes the Amoeba to divide in two. Inside the protoplasm of the Amoeba is the cytoplasm (nucleus) .... The remarkable division of the Amoeba cuts directly thru the protoplasm AND the cytoplasm .... This produces two Amoeba ... it is called fission.

The original Amoeba is the parent ... now gone .. The two halves of the parent are the young each possessing all the characteristics and powers of the parent.

Each can move, eat, feel, grow
reproduce by fission.
puts out pseudopods,
moves,
ingests food particles,
discharges in-digestables,
avoid those things which irritate it,
contracts if the water temp increases,
grows fat on good food.....
and finally gives birth.

It even has a soul, part of that Universal soul called life, which no one can deny it is part of.

An Amoeba is nothing more than Amino Acids and Protein .... and yet this chemical is a cute liddle fella that provides hours of viewing amusement, and we readily humanise it.

In fact ... as simple as the Amoeba is ... it has all the qualities, in their proto forms ... of all life on Earth. And this is perfectly natural because it is one of the early life forms that all other life descended from.

You will find a god-zillion of these little relations in any cup of creek water.

cool bananas ... greg

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CLICK to see him move

CLICK to see him eat a protist, ... watch the protist futile struggle against the predator.

.

[Graybeard]

Protozoa:

Paramoecium:

Another Protozoan which is common is Paramoecium. The body of the Paramoecium is much larger than that of the Amoeba. (0.25mm) and of FIXED shape.

It is elongate, ellipitical, and flattened and a very complexly formed mass.

It is less primitive than the Amoeba but, nonetheless, is still a SINGLE cell.

The protoplasm is soft within and denser on the outside and is covered by a thin membrane. The membrane is covered by very small very fine hairs called cilia ... which is a hardened variation of the outer denser protoplasm of the membrane.

On one side there is a shallow groove that leads to a small funnel-shaped depression in the body which serves as the mouth. In fact this is probably the first mouth in its most primitive form.

The Paramoecium 'swims' by vibrating the cilia .... and brings food to the opening (mouth) by producing tiny currents in the water by means of the cilia.

The food is other protozoa .. it is a cannibal .. which is directed to the mouth and taken into the body, the undigestable parts are thrust out ALWAYS thru a particular part of the body ... the primitive arse-hole.

Within the body there are two nuclei and two pulsating vacuoles (wiki) ... Amoeba have only one ... which aid in discharging waste products and toxins from the body.

When the Paramoecium touches some foreign substance or is otherwise irritated it swims away, shooting from the surface of its body long, fine, threads which are coiled up when at rest.

When the Paramoecium has in enough food and has reached the limit of its size it divides transversely in halves the same as the Amoeba. Both Nuclei divide first, and then the cytoplasm constricts and divides.

Two new Paramoecium are formed.

ONE of them has to develop a new mouth and arse-hole. In Paramoecium we see, as opposed to Amoeba, the first developmental change during the course of the growth of the young.

Young Amoeba have only to add 'substance' in order to grow.

Paramoecium have to add substance as well as DEVELOP a mouth and arse-hole.

The division of the Paramoecium continues thru many generations ... parent to siblings .. to parent ... to siblings ... etc. But then it stops (programmed). At this point the Paramoecium come together into pairs and part of one nuclei 'fuses' together with part of the other member nuclei.

In the meantime the second nucleus in each Paramoecium has broken up and disappeared.

The new Nucleus composed of pairs of old nucleus's from two Paramoecium ... divides ... and now each new paramoecium has two Nucleus just as it did before it divided and joined ... this process is called CONJUGATION ....

These new Paramoecium have DNA combined from they're Parent/s

Now we can see how complexity of simple single cells ... can be built up.

Both the AMOEBA and the PARAMOECIUM display all the hallmarks of LIFE .... But in the Paramoecium we see the first development of specialisation, fixity .... A mouth, an arsehole, a fixed body plan, limbs as tools (cilia), the conjugation of two separate DNA codes into one ... and all in a SINGLE CELL ...

cool bananas ... greg

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click to see PARAMOECIUM feeding

Click to see PARAMOECIUM process pigment stained food

[Graybeard]

LIFE or MOLECULE ... ANIMATE or INANIMATE

Coincidental or not so coincidental connections

CHON (or CHNOPS) is an mnemonic acronym for the four (or six most essential) most common elements in living organisms:

carbon,
hydrogen,
oxygen,
nitrogen.

These four elements are also notable for being the least massive (and having the lowest atomic number) in their group in the periodic table. The acronym CHNOPS, which stands for

carbon,
hydrogen,
nitrogen,
oxygen,
phosphorus,
sulfur,

the six important elements covalent combinations of which go to make up most biological molecules.

Sulfur is used in the amino acids cysteine and methionine. Phosphorus is an essential element in the formation of phospholipids, a class of lipids that are a major component of all cell membranes as they can form lipid bilayers which keep ions, proteins and other molecules where they are needed for cell function and prevents them from diffusing into areas where they should not be.

Excluding noble gases, the CHON elements are also some of the most abundant -

carbon (4th most abundant),
hydrogen (most abundant),
oxygen (3rd)
nitrogen (6th).

The other abundant elements,

helium
neon,

are both inert - they do not react with other elements. Carbonaceous asteroids are rich in CHON elements. These asteroids are the most common type and frequently collide with Earth as meteorites. Such collisions were especially common early in Earth's history and these meteorites may have been crucial in the formation of life on Earth.


The main points I am trying to note here is that these six elements are

1 .. The 'lightest' elements on the periodic table ..

For these above reasons the transportation by asteroid type bodies of these elements to this Planet is reasonable and logical

2 .. The most abundant elements spread over the Planet

If they were transported here by asteriods/comets then it also follows that they are widespread over this Planet from impact ... this is also logical and reasonable

3 .. The most common Asteroids are carbonaceous (above) and frequently collide with Earth. Coincidently (?) these Asteroids contain these elements


So... A reasonable deduction (for the moment) is that these six elements are common on the Earth and their transportation here explains their ubiquitous presence. A further deduction is, given the known fact that these six elements are required by life in all its diverse forms, then life evolved from complex molecular build up of these ubiquitious elements ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~

The following is a graphic of the Ph scale ....... ACID at one end ... SALT WATER in the middle ... ALKALI at the other end



One of the strongest Acids we know of is Sulphuric Acid H2SO4 (vitriol) and it is also one of the most needed acids that we have use for. One of the strongest Alkalies we know of is Caustic Soda NAOH (Lye) and it is also one of the most needed alkalies that we have use for.

Both of these substances are extremely corrosive to life.
Both of these substances are (paradoxically) extremely necessary to life.

All of the elements necessary to form Sulphuric acid or Caustic Soda are in our bodies .... they are made of nothing more complex than CHNOPS ... those same elements necessary to life. Apart from the crucial role these elements provide in life itself, they also affect, or enable almost every other product we use here on Earth .... So without them, not only could life not exist, but if it could, it couldn't exist for long (Irish philosophy)

A good indication of any Nation's Industrial strength, and hence, its ability to make war or defend can be measured by its ability to make Sulphuric Acid ... so necessary is it (wiki) World production annually is approx 200 million tonnes.

Just as important, and for similar reasons, is production of Caustic Soda (wiki) World production annually is nearly approx 60 million tonnes


Really ... this post, for the moment is to point out the strange or not so strange coincidences between these simple atoms, their use in organic life, and their use in furthering that life they are used to produce. More to be said later on this.

cool bananas ... greg

[Graybeard]

The iron-sulfur world theory

Günter Wächtershäuser


The iron-sulfur world theory is a set of proposals for the origin of life and the early evolution of life advanced by Günter Wächtershäuser, a Munich chemist and patent lawyer. The theory proposes that early life may have formed on the surface of iron sulfide minerals, hence the name. It was developed by retrodiction from extant biochemistry in conjunction with chemical experiments.


Wächtershäuser proposes that the earliest form of life, termed "pioneer organism", originated in a volcanic hydrothermal flow at high pressure and high (100°C) temperature. It had a composite structure of a mineral base with catalytic transition metal centers (predominantly iron and nickel, but also perhaps cobalt, manganese, tungsten and zinc).

The catalytic centers catalyzed autotrophic carbon fixation pathways generating small molecule (non-polymer) organic compounds from inorganic gases (e.g. carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide).

(Please note, again, we see the involvement of CHNOPS .... those ubiquitous liddle atoms ... greg)

These organic compounds were retained on or in the mineral base as organic ligands of the transition metal centers with a flow retention time in correspondence with their mineral bonding strength thereby defining an autocatalytic "surface metabolism".

The catalytic transition metal centers became autocatalytic by being accelerated by their organic products turned ligands. The carbon fixation metabolism became autocatalytic by forming a metabolic cycle in the form of a primitive sulfur-dependent version of the reductive citric acid cycle. Accelerated catalysts expanded the metabolism and new metabolic products further accelerated the catalysts. The idea is that once such a primitive autocatalytic metabolism was established, its intrinsically synthetic chemistry began to produce ever more complex organic compounds, ever more complex pathways and ever more complex catalytic centers.

The fundamental idea of the origin of life according to the iron-sulfur world theory can be simplified in the following brief characterization: Pressurize and heat a water flow with dissolved volcanic gases (e.g. carbon monoxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide) to 100°C. Pass the flow over catalytic transition metal solids (e.g. iron sulfide and nickel sulfide). Wait and locate the formation of catalytic metallo-peptides.

Some crucial aspects of this theory have been confirmed experimentally.

cool bananas ... greg

[Graybeard]

Sulphur Eating Bacteria


PhysOrg.com :

Acid Mine Drainage (AMD) is caused when sulphur in mine tailings reacts with water and oxygen in the environment to produce sulphuric acid.

It is a major environmental issue, with AMD a concern for lake acidification and water quality. AMD is also implicated as a climate change culprit - the sulphuric acid dissolves carbonate minerals in the underlying rock, liberating carbon dioxide in a process known as acid rock weathering.

Using two beamlines at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) and a third at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), researchers from McMaster University have found that two species of bacteria isolated from a mine tailings pond in northern Ontario actually work together to limit the amount of acid produced by sharing the sulphur in the tailings as an energy source.

The discovery, made by Ph.D. student Kelsey Norlund and her advisor Lesley Warren with the help of veteran synchrotron researcher Adam Hitchcock, not only demonstrates how bacteria can modify their environment, but could also lead to a rethink of the amount of atmospheric carbon produced by acid weathering that is included in global models by as much as 26 million tonnes. “Before this work, our understanding of how this system operates was based largely on chemical models of water quality in these tailings ponds; things like the sulphur chemistry and pH,” explains Warren. “Everyone knew that bacteria were there and playing a role, but that role was not well described beyond broad brushstrokes.”

The bacteria, strains of Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and Acidiphilium spp., work together to form microscopic pods, with A. ferrooxidans on the outside and Acidiphilium on the inside. While both microbes can use elemental sulphur as an energy source, Norlund and Warren found that only A. ferrooxidans makes use of the raw sulphur, producing different chemical forms that were then metabolized by the Acidiphilium cells, producing sulphur compounds that, in turn, could be reused by A. ferrooxidans.

The result: a microscopic geochemical reactor, in which each species of microbe feeds off the sulphur-containing by-products of the other, rather than competing for the same chemical food source. “We were able to see how these different bacteria organize the different types of sulphur,” says Norlund. “It’s a highly organized, cooperative ecological partnership. The waste products of one strain are food for the other, but they aren’t just using the leftovers - they’re actually regenerating each other’s food source.”

The cycling of sulphur compounds in this manner markedly reduces the amount of sulphur available to form sulphuric acid, dissolve carbonate rocks and release CO2. Norlund estimates that between 40 and 90 percent less carbon is released into the atmosphere because of this cycling than has been predicted based on the sulphur chemistry alone.

The next steps for the research team include more beam time at the CLS to study how the microbial pods form in the first place, as well as going out into the wider environment to identify other such partnerships and assess the roles they play in global geochemical cycles.

“We suspect that this sort of relationship is quite prevalent,” says Warren. “It’s just a matter of knowing where to look and what to look for.”

Tho it is now becoming extremely obvious, once again, my 'pedantic'ness forces me to point out that here again is CHNOPS in action

cool bananas ... greg

[G_burnett]

the only difference is that from a tree is that one took on cellulose for a skin
the only difference between it and a rock is the rock did not reproduce, it was stubborn.

[labelwench]

The title of this thread, borrowed from a classic song.......just begs to be posted, lol.....



Einstein's theory is mentioned, so that adds a dimension of science....

[Graybeard]

The title of this thread, borrowed from a classic song

Borrowed ... ?? BORROWED .....?? Jeeeezzz ... I invented it !!! Post 2, 3, 4, 5 added .... I iz cheating ... lol

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~

According to the Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, every psychologist must at some point in his or her career write a sentence of the form: "The human being is the only animal that ----".


May I never ever be forced to write or even think such a thing again ... I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing, literally nothing, that a Human can do that cannot be done by some other critter on this Planet. Anthromorphic deductions are absolute nonsense !!

This thread is meant to be informative for existing members or new members who may not know, or may wish to know ... more about the basic underpinnings of Life ... wot it is made of.

I will continue to make posts on the current theme (posts 1-5) ... but welcome questions, criticisms, additions.

Sincerely Greg.

[Graybeard]

ABIOGENESIS ... (A - bio - genesis)



In natural science, abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose.

Most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can form via natural chemical reactions unrelated to life.

In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids, that are themselves synthesized through biochemical pathways catalysed by proteins. Which of these organic molecules first arose and how they formed the first life is the focus of abiogenesis.

In any theory of abiogenesis, two aspects of life have to be accounted for: replication and metabolism. The question of which came first gave rise to different types of theories. In the beginning, metabolism-first theories were proposed, and only later thinking gave rise to the modern, replication-first approach.

In modern, still somewhat limited understanding, the first living things on Earth are thought to be single cell prokaryotes (which lack a cell nucleus), perhaps evolved from protobionts

Protobionts are systems that are considered to have possibly been the precursors to prokaryotic cells. If RNA is trapped inside, the system can use the RNA or select for it.

A protobiont is an aggregate of abiotically produced organic molecules surrounded by a membrane or a membrane-like structure. Protobionts exhibit some of the properties associated with life, including simple reproduction, metabolism and excitability, as well as the maintenance of an internal chemical environment different from that of their surroundings. It has been suggested that they are a key step in the origin of life on earth. Experiments by Sidney W. Fox and Aleksandr Oparin have demonstrated that they may be formed spontaneously, in conditions similar to the environment thought to exist on an early Earth. These experiments formed liposomes and microspheres, which have membrane structure similar to the phospholipid bilayer found in cells.

Nanobes or nanobacteria, being too small to be functional living organisms, may be an example of naturally occurring protobionts.

cool bananas ... greg

[melanie]

Thanks for the thread Greg.

I'm learning something new everyday.

This is the [Good News]