Iron integral to the development of life on Earth and the possibility of life on other planets:
Iron is an essential nutrient that almost all life requires to grow and thrive. Iron's importance goes all the way back to the formation of the planet Earth, where the amount of iron in the Earth's rocky mantle was 'set' by the conditions under which the planet formed and went on to have major ramifications for how life developed. .
[...] "The initial amount of iron in Earth's rocks is 'set' by the conditions of planetary accretion, during which the Earth's metallic core segregated from its rocky mantle," says co-author Jon Wade, Associate Professor of Planetary Materials at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford. "Too little iron in the rocky portion of the planet, like the planet Mercury, and life is unlikely. Too much, like Mars, and water may be difficult to keep on the surface for times relevant to the evolution of complex life."
Initially, iron conditions on Earth would have been optimal to ensure surface retention of water. Iron would have also been soluble in sea water, making it easily available to give simple life forms a jumpstart in development. However, oxygen levels on Earth began to rise approximately 2.4 billion years ago (referred to as the "Great Oxygenation Event'). An increase in oxygen created a reaction with iron, which led to it becoming insoluble. Gigatons of iron dropped out of sea water, where it was much less available to developing life forms.
"Life had to find new ways to obtain the iron it needs," says co-author Hal Drakesmith [...]. "For example, infection, symbiosis and multicellularity are behaviors that enable life to more efficiently capture and utilize this scarce but vital nutrient. Adopting such characteristics would have propelled early life forms to become ever more complex, on the way to evolving into what we see around us today."
The need for iron as a driver for evolution, and consequent development of a complex organism capable of acquiring poorly available iron, may be rare or random occurrences. This has implications for how likely complex life forms might be on other planets.
Journal Reference:
Jon Wade, David J. Byrne, Chris J. Ballentine, et al. Temporal variation of planetary iron as a driver of evolution [open], Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109865118)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 07 2021, @12:54PM (1 child)
Reading around this article (I only just started) I learnt about the Frost Line. Turns out the boundary between gas giants and rocky planets in the solar system arises due to sublimation of water at lower radii. Fascinating. Let's see what the next Gyear holds.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 07 2021, @10:13PM
Much like the fundamental constants of the Universe that make life possible... Life on Earth requires: the stuff that's on Earth. Chickens, eggs, doesn't matter... things are this way because that's the way they are. If they were different, then they wouldn't be this way, would they?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday December 07 2021, @02:38PM (12 children)
Iron was central to the development of life on earth. It wasn't the only such element. Whether it is necessary for life elsewhere and how much is needed is a guess. We've got an existence proof that things can work out that way, but that's hardly a proof that it's the only way things can work out. For that matter, cobalt is essential to human life, but not very much of it is needed. Copper is essential to photosynthesis, but each choloroplast needs only a tiny bit. Etc.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:48PM (1 child)
Does iron have some other purpose in Earth animal life other than to bind to oxygen in order to transport it from the lungs to cells throughout the body?
(asking because I don't know the answer)
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:44PM
I seem to recall that it's used as a catalyst in various places, but I couldn't turn this up in a quick search. Just that some microorganisms are also dependent on iron, and they don't have hemoglobin. This seems to imply that it has other purposes, but doesn't clarify what those are.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:57PM (9 children)
Headline should be something like, "Another thought experiment from scientists who can't imagine how things might be different."
No, of course I can't propose a working chemistry for life, different from our own. But, the universe is kinda big. If and when we get our into the universe, we are likely to find some stunning surprises.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @05:52PM
The mind is the most interesting thing in the Universe. And we strangle it with a bunch of rules, indoctrinating kids about Right and Wrong like they are written in stone. Research and science are becoming Star Trek parodies with menial clerks obeying orders of fearless leaders. Come on, grow up you fucking noobs.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @07:27PM (1 child)
Well, many crustacea have blood based on hemocyanin, so iron is not that essential.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:46PM
Well, that shows that it's not essential for blood, but there may be other uses which are essential. But also perhaps not.
Still, many bacteria without ANY blood stream are dependent on the supply of iron, so I think it must have other uses in the Earth biosystem.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:02PM (2 children)
And this, Prof. Runaway, is why you fail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:55PM (1 child)
Cool. Mr. Genius Anonymous Coward is going to show us how it's done. Please, do a complete job, right down to the most innocuous catalyst necessary to sustain life with your new chemistry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @11:21PM
Prof. Runaway said I don't have to! So there, you stable genius AC!
("Stable genius" = full of horseshit!)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:43PM (1 child)
Classic conservative anti-science shitposting. So much anger against scientists because they challenge your Judeo-christian world view and your news outlets demonize academia.
Truly the anti-education movement by the right is shocking. How dare these scientists think about life formation elsewhere using what we know about life on Earth!/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:05PM
The anti-education movement is not from the Right, it is from the upper-class. They send their offspring to private schools where they learn to rule, while the proletariat send their kids to government schools to learn to be obedient little workers. Read the works of John Taylor Gatto [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Thursday December 16 2021, @07:47PM
There's a scientist [wikipedia.org] that thinks that life must be the way it is, regardless of the planet in has evolved in.
I read his book [nick-lane.net], and it's fascinating.
There's also a video of a talk [youtube.com], but I haven't watched it.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:23PM (6 children)
Life (as in self-reproduction mechanics) is a computational process. So is the sentience. So is the sapience.
As such, life, intelligent entities and organized civilization can emerge in any physical domain with some sufficient threshold of combinatorial complexity and some minimal volume of environment containing such complex substances mix, providing sufficient resources for adequate computational complexity for implementing reproduction of computing structures.[1]
Quantum Chemistry paradigm is just some adequate instance of such computational complexity environment. Linking life to presence of iron is just plain stupid, not a science.
[1] John von Neumann: Theory of Self Reproducing Automata, 1966
Proved minimum for self-reproduction of Turing machines is 26-states cells squarespace, if I remember correctly.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:29PM (5 children)
> Life (as in self-reproduction mechanics) is a computational process.
Not really.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @06:07PM (4 children)
If a newly formed planet cooled and it's surface ended up naturally covered with only a vast computer network, life could evolve within that network.
Oh, wait. But what if the life were on virtual machines? Then it wouldn't be in "any physical domain" because the machine is virtual.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday December 07 2021, @07:53PM (3 children)
Every virtual machine runs on a physical substrate, which means everything running within the virtual machine is also running on that substrate.
So far as we can tell the universe is inherently physical, and thus there are no non-physical domains for activity. The closest we get is theoretical domains such as mathematics. But events cannot occur in a theoretical domain, only within a mind or other physical domain that's modeling a system that may be based upon a theoretical domain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:33PM (2 children)
It's an infinite stack of virtual machines all the way down.
The final virtual machine of that infinite stack runs on a physical machine which is on the back of a turtle.
So far as I can tell, I'm not in a mental institution. If I were, would it make any difference. Maybe it's just really carefully designed to provide an amazingly large scale emulation of reality.
<no-sarcasm>
It must be true that even a universe simulation eventually runs on something that is physical reality.
</no-sarcasm>
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Wednesday December 08 2021, @02:38PM (1 child)
> It must be true that even a universe simulation eventually runs on something that is physical reality.
What does "physical reality" mean?
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday December 08 2021, @03:11PM
Something that is simulated to appear real. :-)
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:31PM (11 children)
Here's a poll i'd like to see:
Is it 'Iron' or 'Iyern'? I say 'Iron'.
Is there an age difference? It seems younger people say 'Iyern' unless talking about Iron Man, then it's 'Iron Man' but the older people say 'Iron' no matter what.
Same with jewelry: younger people have taken to saying 'Jewlery' which is soooooo wrong. Jewelry comes from the words Jewel and Jeweler, not Jewl and Jewler.
OMG, language, lol.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @04:57PM (4 children)
It's "I earn".
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 07 2021, @07:21PM (2 children)
and how old are you? Just taking a 'pole'. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday December 07 2021, @08:34PM (1 child)
Too bad I can't say adolescent. With a similar mental state, I guess it would translate to 'dirty old man'.
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:31PM
Heh... i like Benny Hill too! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 07 2021, @07:45PM
A pole eye'd like to see:
What was the size of the slide rule you used most recently for a calculation?
[_] four inches
[x] six inches
[_] eight inches
[_] ten inches
[_] I didn't measure it
[_] did you mean with the slide extended or non extended?
[_] Other (please specify in comments)
I'd go with "She didn't measure it: she just shoved it in and was ecstatic" for $1000, Alex. ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:10PM (1 child)
I have only ever heard it pronounced as "I-earn". If there is another English pronunciation, I have not yet come across it in 40+ years of being on this earth.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 08 2021, @09:29PM
Instead of "I earn" consider for a moment "eye ron". There is a word where people pronounce "urn" but should pronounce "RON".
Environment
NOT: En vi URN mint
Bonus points for pronouncing: Feb-ROO-airy (a month) and Wed-NESS-day (a weak day).
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:31PM (3 children)
Also people who pronounce "they're" as "their" are sounding it wrong. The contraction of "they are" should sound more like "they-ur". In the 80s, I still heard most people saying it wrong, but over the last 20 years, everyone just seems to say "their" now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 07 2021, @09:33PM (2 children)
most people saying it right*
(Score: 1) by Mockingbird on Tuesday December 07 2021, @11:24PM (1 child)
That does beg the question . . .
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 08 2021, @12:51AM
"It is a sin to kill a mockingbird" Atticus Finch
"It's illegal to kill a Gaaark." Gaaark
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --