Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T15:16:09.588Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A review on the spontaneous formation of the building blocks of life and the generation of a set of hypotheses governing universal abiogenesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2012

B. S. Palmer
B. S. Palmer*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There have been a number of hypotheses regarding abiogenesis, the ‘Metabolism First’ model and the ‘RNA World Hypothesis’ are two such examples. All theories on abiogenesis make a set of unstated assumptions with regard to the elemental make up of life or only apply the theory to a primitive earth model. This paper reviews current knowledge from the myriad of observations from a variety of scientific disciplines and applies generally understood thermodynamic reasoning to explain the formation of molecules known to be used by life. These arguments are used in this paper to construct a set of new hypotheses which govern universal abiogenesis. The intention of this paper is to show by the application of our known laws of science that life is the end sequence of events of the fundamental forces which affect the entire universe. From these events a new hypotheses on abiogenesis can be formulated. The hypotheses proposed by this paper are incorporated in many of the current theories of abiogenesis, either assumed or accepted but very rarely stated or explained. The proposed set of five hypotheses are: (1) any celestial mass that has a body of liquid water and therefore has access to energy will form at least the building blocks of life, if not life itself. (2) The major component of any life form anywhere in the universe will be H2O. (3) Any organism, anywhere in the universe, will be carbon-based. (4) All life in the universe will be composed of nucleic acid based molecules as its code for life. (5) The cell is the universal unit of life. Throughout this paper the background to the formulation of these hypotheses is discussed, as is the explanation of why these hypotheses are universal and not limited to an application of a primitive earth model. This set of hypotheses is also testable as any investigation of a celestial body which contains liquid water (e.g. Europa) will quickly provide evidence to prove or refute the proposed theory.

Keywords

universal abiogenesiscarbon-basedorigin of lifespontaneous
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 39 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkins, P.W. (1998). Physical Chemistry, 6th edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Blair, W. & Raymond, J. (1984). In NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center Future of Ultraviolet Astronomy Based on Six Years of IUE Research. pp. 103–106. NASA, Maryland, USA.Google Scholar
Borucki, W.J. et al. (2003). In ASP Conf. Series 294 The Kepler Mission: Finding the Sizes, Orbits, and Frequencies of Earth-size and Larger Extrasolar Planets. Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets, ed. Deming, D. & Seager, S., p. 294. ASP, San Francisco, CA.Google Scholar
Canchaya, C., Fournous, G., Chibani-Chennoufi, S., Dillmann, M.L. & Brüssow, H. (2003). Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 6(4), 417–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carr, M. H. et al. (1997). Nature 391, 363–365.Google Scholar
Ceres, P. & Zlotnick, A. (2002). Biochemistry 41(39), 11525–11531.Google Scholar
Chela-Flores, J. (2007). Int. J. Astrobiol. 6(3), 241–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, C., Kao, C.C. & Dragnea, B. (2008). Self-assembly of brome mosaic virus capsids: insights from shorter time-scale experiments. J. Phys. Chem. A 112(39), 9405–9412.Google Scholar
Chiaramello, J.M., Talbi, D., Berthier, G. & Ellinger, Y. (2005) Int. J. Astrobiol. 4(2), 125–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciesla, F.J. & Cuzzi, J.N. (2005). The evolution of the water distribution in a viscous protoplanetary disk. Icarus 181(1), 178–204.Google Scholar
Coc, A., Vangioni-Flam, E., Descouvemont, P., Adahchour, A. & Angulo, C. (2004). Astrophys. J. 600, 544–552.Google Scholar
Cornish, N.J., Spergel, D.N., Starkman, G.D. & Komatsu, E. (2004). Phys. Rev. Lett. 92(20), 210302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dullemond, C.P. & Dominik, C. (2005). Dust coagulation in protoplanetary disks: a rapid depletion of small grains. Astron. Astrophys. 434(3), 971–986.Google Scholar
Ellis, J. & Schramm, D.N. (1995). Could a nearby supernova explosion have caused a mass extinction? Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 92(1), 235–238.Google Scholar
Evans, N.J. II, Sato, T., Morris, G. & Zuckerman, B. (1975). Astrophys. J. 199, 383–387 & 389–397.Google Scholar
Geballe, T.R., Tielens, A.G.G.M. & Allamandola, L.J. (1989). Astrophys. J. 341, 278–287.Google Scholar
Hamley, I.W. (2000). Introduction To Soft Matter, Polymers, Colloids, Amphiphiles and Liquid Crystals. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester.Google Scholar
Holland, W.S., Greaves, J.S., Zuckerman, B., Webb, R.A., McCarthy, C., Coulson, I.M., Walther, D.M., Dent, W.R.F., Gear, W.K. & Robson, I. (1998). Nature 392(6678), 788–791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollis, J.M., Lovas, F.J., Remijan, A.J., Jewell, P.R., Ilyushin, V.V. & Kleiner, I. (2006). Detection of acetamide (CH3CONH2): the largest interstellar molecule with a peptide bond. Astrophys. J. 643(1), L25–L28.Google Scholar
Hudson, R.L. (2001). The Interstellar Medium pages from NASA. http://wind.gsfc.nasa.gov/mfi/lepedu/terms/ism.htmGoogle Scholar
Iwamoto, N., Umeda, H., Tominaga, N., Nomoto, K. & Maeda, K. (2005). The first chemical enrichment in the universe and the formation of hyper metal-poor stars. Science 309(5733), 451–453.Google Scholar
Johnson, A.P., Cleaves, H.J., Dworkin, J.P., Glavin, D.P., Lazcano, A. & Bada, J.L. (2008). The Miller volcanic spark discharge experiment. Science 322(5900), 404.Google Scholar
Kwok, S. (2009). Int. J. Astrobiol. 8(3), 161–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazio, J. (2011). Why do we assume that other beings must be based on carbon? Why couldn't organisms be based on other substances? http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/part6/section-16.htmlGoogle Scholar
Marlaire, R.D. (2009). NASA Reproduces a Building Block of Life in the Laboratory. www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/uracil.htmlGoogle Scholar
Marois, C., Macintosh, B., Barman, T., Zuckerman, B. & Song, I. (2008). Direct imaging of multiple planets orbiting the star HR 8799. Science 322(5906), 1348.Google Scholar
Maskill, H. (1996). Mechanisms of Organic Reactions, Oxford Chemistry Primers number 45. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
McDaniel, L.D., Young, E., Delaney, J., Ruhnau, F., Ritchie, K.B. & Paul, J.H. (2010). High frequency of horizontal gene transfer in the oceans. Science 330(6000), 50.Google Scholar
McMurry, J. (1996). Organic Chemistry. 4th edn. Brooks/Cole CA (ITP).Google Scholar
Modjaz, M. (2007). Varied deaths of massive stars: Properties of nearby type IIb, Ib and Ic supernovae. Ph.D. dissertation. Harvard University, Publication No. AAT 3265046.Google Scholar
NASA (2011). Nucleosynthesis explained by NASA's Cosmicopia. http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/nucleo.html.Google Scholar
O'Dell, C.R. & Wen, Z. (1994). Astrophys. J. 436(1), 194–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pace, N.R. (2001). The universal nature of biochemistry. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98(3), 805–808.Google Scholar
Peeters, Z., Botta, O., Charnley, S.B., Kisiel, Z., Kuan, Y.-J. & Ehrenfreund, P. (2005). Astron. Astrophys. 433(2), 583–590.Google Scholar
Rauf, K., Hann, A. & Wickramasinghe, C. (2010). Int. J. Astrobiol. 9(1), 35–43.Google Scholar
Reimann, B.E., Lewin, J.C. & Volcani, B.E. (1965). Studies on the biochemistry and fine structure of silica shell formation in diatoms. I. The structure of the cell wall of cylindrotheca fusiformis Reimann and Lewin. J. Cell Biol. 24, 39–55.Google Scholar
Roberts, W.W. (1969). Large-scale shock formation in spiral galaxies and its implications on star formation. Astrophys. J. 158, 123.Google Scholar
Sandford, S.A. & Allamandola, L.J. (1993). Astrophys. J. 409(2), L65–L68.Google Scholar
Shriver, D.F., Atkins, P.W. & Langford, C.H. (1994). Inorganic Chemistry, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Smith, N et al. (2007). Astrophys. J. 666(2), 1116–1128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Springel, V. et al. (2005). Simulations of the formation, evolution and clustering of galaxies and quasars. Nature 435(7042), 629–636.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Squyres, S.W., Reynolds, R.T. & Cassen, P.M. (1983). Liquid water and active resurfacing on Europa. Nature 301, 225–226.Google Scholar
Thuan, T.X. & Izotov, Y.I. (2002). The primordial helium-4 abundance determination: systematic effects. Space Sci. Rev. 100, 263–276.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomohisa, S., Michito, Y., Sota, S. & Makoto, F. (2009). Minimal nucleotide duplex formation in water through enclathration in self-assembled hosts. Nat. Chem. 1(1), 53–56.Google Scholar
Van Noorden, R. (2009). RNA world easier to make. Nature doi: 10.1038/news.2009.471.Google Scholar
Watson, J.S., Pearson, V.K., Sephton, M.A. & Gilmour, I. (2004). Molecular, isotopic and in situ analytical approaches to the study of meteoritic organic material. Int. J. Astrobiol. 3(2), 107–116.Google Scholar
Wolfe-Simon, F. et al. (2011). A bacterium that can grow by using arsenic instead of phosphorus. Science 332(6034), 1163–1166.Google Scholar
Woosley, S. & Janka, T. (2005). The physics of core-collapse supernovae. Nat. Phys. 1(3), 147–154.Google Scholar
Yoshida, N., Omukai, K., Hernquist, L. & Abel, T. (2006). Formation of primordial stars in a ΛCDM universe. Astrophys. J. 652(1), 6–25.Google Scholar
Zeilik, M. (1997). Astronomy, The Evolving Universe, 8th edn. John Wiley & Sons, New York.Google Scholar