BIO1 - Origin of Life (National Geographic)

1. What kind of place was primordial Earth? The young sun shone with only 70% of its present power. Four billion years ago The atmosphere held no free oxygen. There were few sounds beyond the wind, the hiss of lava hitting water, the boom of meteorites. No plants, no animals, no bacteria, no viruses. 2. What kind of place was primordial Earth? No one knows exactly what Earth was like when life began. Rocks that may have held clues were deformed long ago by the movements of the crust.

7.

Miller-Urey Experiment, 1953

I turned on the experiment one night at 10 p.m. Then I

came back the next morning, and the water inside the flask had turned yellow.

What he had was a rich broth of amino acids, used by all

known creatures as the building blocks for proteins. STANLEY MILLER - Father of Prebiotic Chemistry 7 Mar 1930 20 May 2007 8. Miller-Urey Experiment, 1953 Primeval atmosphere: CH4, H2, NH3 Early ocean Lightning

Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere

was different from what Miller first supposed. CO2, N2 *** *** CO2 + N2 = organic molecules Scientists

3.

Did life begin in a ball of ice?

find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup. 9. Help from outer space

The colder the temperature, the more stable the

compounds.

Interplanetary debris, hydrothermal vents, atmospheric

reactions: formaldehyde, cyanide, ammonia.

A large variety of organic compounds, including those

which play a major role in biochemistry such as amino acids, purines, pyramid lines, etc., have been identified in one class of meteorites, the carbonaceous chondrites. 10. Definition of Life

These then combine with water in a lattice of ice,

resulting in glycine. 4. Did life begin in a pond?

Darwin and his contemporaries imagined life evolving in

a small body of water.

Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of

undergoing Darwinian evolution. Gerald Joyce, The Scripps Research Institute 11. Definition of Life

Compounds may have been concentrated on the

surfaces of sheet-like minerals, which attract certain molecules and act as a catalyst for subsequent reactions. 5. Did life begin in a cauldron?

Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of

undergoing Darwinian evolution. Gerald Joyce, The Scripps Research Institute

Gases released from the molten magma would have

been constantly seeping from the surface, leaching out vital compounds.

Darwinian evolution: Able to reproduce by making copies of themselves. Copies

must contain inheritable imperfections (mutations) that introduce variations into the population.

Resting on a stabilizing surface of pyrite, carbon

monoxide and a methyl group combine, one step in the formation of activated acetic acid, a crucial chemical for synthesizing other organic compounds.

System of natural selection that favors survival of some

individuals over others. 12. Life begins to self-assemble

6.

Miller-Urey Experiment, 1953 Primeval atmosphere: CH4, H2, NH3 Early ocean Lightning

Before DNA and proteins evolved, before even the

simplest bacteria appeared, life may have consisted solely of RNA molecules floating in the sea, replicating, mutating, and undergoing natural selection on their own.

By sparking the atmosphere, Miller hoped to generate

new chemicals that would rain into the tiny ocean and react to form something.

 As DNA and proteins evolved, these more specialized

molecules took over most of the critical work from RNA. 13. Cells take form

At some unknown point life found a home inside a

protective membrane, forming the very first cells. 14. Global gas warfare

Stromatolites: microorganisms (cyanobacteria) + rock

15. The triumph of O2

Bacteria that use oxygen generate energy far more

efficiently than their oxygen-hating neighbors.

Fermentation: 2 molecules of ATP from one molecule of sugar Aerobic respiration: 36 molecules of ATP from one molecule of sugar

16. The origin of sex

Asexual reproduction: organisms make genetically

identical copies of themselves.

With the evolution of sex you get a lot of genetic

recombination, a lot of possibility for change. - Andy Knoll, Harvard University 17. Summary

The recurring idea throughout this discussion is that:

right ingredients + right conditions spontaneous abiotic formation of organic compounds, (starting with monomers, which later polymerized, eventually forming the complex biomolecules that make up todays living organisms)

Recap the trends in the evolution of living organisms

are:

Unicellular before multicellular organisms Heterotrophs before autotrophs Anaerobic before aerobic Asexual reproduction before sexual reproduction