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from the It's-the-end^W-beginning-of-the-world-as-we-know-it? dept.
Researchers have demonstrated that an enzyme-free metabolic pathway using sulfate radicals can mirror the Krebs cycle:
A set of biochemical processes crucial to cellular life on Earth could have originated in chemical reactions taking place on the early Earth four billion years ago, believes a group of scientists from the Francis Crick Institute and the University of Cambridge. The researchers have demonstrated a network of chemical reactions in the lab which mimic the important Krebs cycle present in living organisms today. In a study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, they say it could explain an important step in how life developed on Earth.
[...] One central metabolic pathway learned by every A-level biology student is the Krebs cycle. But how did this essential set of chemical reactions, each step catalyzed by an enzyme, first arise? Each step in the cycle is not enough by itself. Life needs a sequence of these reactions, and it would have needed it before biological enzymes were around: Amino acids, the molecular components of enzymes, are made from products of the Krebs cycle.
The research group from the Francis Crick Institute and the University of Cambridge say their demonstration offers an answer. They have shown an enzyme-free metabolic pathway that mirrors the Krebs cycle. It is sparked by particles called sulphate radicals under conditions similar to those on Earth four billion years ago. Senior author Dr Markus Ralser of the Francis Crick Institute and University of Cambridge explains: "This non-enzymatic precursor of the Krebs cycle that we have demonstrated forms spontaneously, is biologically sensible and efficient. It could have helped ignite life four billion years ago."
Found at ScienceDaily.
Sulfate radicals enable a non-enzymatic Krebs cycle precursor (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0083) (DX)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 15 2017, @03:40PM (1 child)
Thats a derivative of brain in a vat which goes all the way back to Plato.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat [wikipedia.org]
I still think Dennet did it best in '78 and it appears nothing since then comes close. Something to google for a copyright violation of:
"Where am I" from Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Daniel C. Dennett, © Bradford Books (1978).
Someone made a series of cool non-parody drawings based on Dennett's "where am I' in the style of the Zen "ten bulls" by Tenshō Shūbun and I can't find it which is too bad. There's only like a thousand versions of the ten ox herding pictures all of which are cool but with varying levels of quality.
I had a nice set of the ten ox herding pix hanging in my bachelor pad apartment in the old days and if I could find the Dennett inspired pixs I think I'd re-hang both sets on opposite sides of my office... Right now my office suffers from a bad case of the middle america white woman thing where not smiling about hanging up decade old kindergarten art projects from my kids in my office is tantamount to dropping them off at the orphanage after school, in fact having anything on the walls not made of colored paper and paste is somehow morally wrong. You can guess how my single guy refrigerator looked compared to school kid era married guy refrigerator which looks like a parody of some TV sitcom all covered with (dust)magnets and crap.
Because our known math does not seem capable of producing qualia like "lemon scent"
Better look out because its a classic ochem lab experiment to do a (i forget) organic chemistry substitution to manufacture banana oil in industrial quantities. Science is always like one step behind and always catching up. I'm too lazy to look up fully synthetic lemon essential oils but in 2017 I'd be surprised if its not possible to turn 50 barrels of crude oil and a bunch of energy into at least 1 barrel of "lemon scented" citrus oil. And its not magic you can simulate the reaction kinetics on computer using "math" that supposedly can't produce or measure what it actually can outside philosophy class.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Thursday March 16 2017, @01:38PM
Because our known math does not seem capable of producing qualia like "lemon scent"
Better look out because its a classic ochem lab experiment to do
I was referring to the lemon scent _qualia_ not the lemon scent chemical (which of course is reproducible). I'm talking about the experience in my mind when I smell or imagine lemon scent or perhaps if some electrode zaps me in the "right place".
Go re-read my entire post in that context. Unless you're another one of those who don't experience such stuff.