Re: Life's range = 0-50C


I feel it my duty as a biologist who has worked with hyperthermophilic
organisms to correct you on multiple points.

You are about 71C off on your upper temperature limit of. The limit
for reproducible life, that is, a bug that divides and grows is
currently at 121C (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/
301/5635/934), and biologists continue to probe this upper limit,
believing it can be expanded. Allow me to reemphasize, life not only
grows at this temperature, it *thrives.* Some Thermotoga microbes are
impossible to keep in culture because they lyse when brought to
normal mesophilic temperatures.

There is also strong evidence, as shown between the free energy of
binding between alpha and beta subunits of tryptophan synthase in
Thermus thermophilus (http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/
M210893200v1), that the enthalpy of salt bridges helps to drive
folding rather than the entropy of hydrophobic collapse. This would
explain the bias of salt bridges in thermophilic proteins. The
knowledge base in which you are stating your broad hypothesis also
appears to lack a thorough understanding of thermodynamics and protein
folding.

It is also a general consensus amongst biologists that the last common
ancestor was most likely a thermophile, since it is so deeply rooted
in the tree of life. Read the following for more detail: (http://
=BGmARvqaMI-IgATjkK3dCw&usg=AFQjCNH2QZ8Mc4SDcMKJJOelMI8Hyt6ysg&sig2=JscVizztnYUTiv-HpQhJlQ).It is also a general consensus that life evolved from spontaneous
events of polymerization from early protein-metal precursors around
volcanic vents. I would google "composomes" to find out more on this
(http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fonline.kitp.ucsb.edu%2Fonline%2Fevonet07%2Flancet1%2Fpdf
%2FLancet1_EvoNet_KITP.pdf&ei=42eARrayL4TSgwTU7YTcCw&usg=AFQjCNEa-
IR_EFgP1S0GIBn5WiKwAGV4JQ&sig2=-YkHXRWaKwQbW-usG2zULg).

The language in which you state your broad claims is poorly worded.
One should be more specific when writing "life," "best fit,"
"dormant." The term you used, "planetary chemical reaction," is
extremely unspecific and unclear, as are your adjectives "strong" and
"fragile." There are massive sequence spaces of amino acid sequences
that remain unprobed.

As a potential scientist, you should site more references when making
such broad and debatably weak claims. Sir, to answer your final
question, yes, many scientists (with PhD's) would disagree with you.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Summary of The Royal Societys Discussion Meeting on Emergence of Life
    ... A discussion meeting held at The Royal Society, ... and biologists to discuss recent research concerning how life ... question of abiogenesis and the early emergence of life on Earth. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Scientist on verge of becoming a God
    ... According to the Fundies life on earth was only created 6,000 years ago. ... The J Craig Venter Institute scientists are aiming to craft a "minimal genome"- the smallest group of genes an organism needs to survive and function - and insert it into an empty cell. ... But building life from scratch, from the "bottom-up", is a challenge that some synthetic biologists have decided to take on. ... So far, his team has successfully built a cell system that can synthesise proteins, which is important for demonstrating that a basic metabolism can be created. ...
    (alt.politics.bush)
  • Re: The stupidity of biologists...
    ... "life cannot come from non-life". ... The 'biologists' have been trying to explain that to the general ... organism and a rusting car is not as absolute as the semantic negation ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Protein folding and P = NP
    ... The longer answer is that protein folding is not necessarily an NP problem. ... Many biological proteins fold quickly and reproducibly, indicating a wide, ... reproducibility could not happen unless there was a much ... When biologists talk of the protein folding problem, ...
    (comp.theory)
  • Re: Creation v. Evolution: the danger of misplaced dogmatism
    ... If biologists ever discover a mechanism for how life came from non- ... I read your posts there on ocassion, Bimm, especially when I need a good ...
    (soc.religion.christian)