An article in LiveScience for June 13, 2008 reported on a possible source of two compounds needed for DNA and RNA.
The study confirmed that some of the raw material for DNA and RNA found in a meteorite did not contaminate the rock after it landed on Earth, but actually originated in space.
Researchers at The University of Nottingham have taken some important first steps to creating a synthetic copycat of a living cell, a leading science journal reports.
Britain's parliament voted on Monday to allow the creation of human-animal embryos which some scientists say are vital to research cures for diseases but critics argue pervert the course of nature.The National Geographic News article is here. The LiveScience article is here.
A team of Penn State researchers has developed a simple artificial cell with which to investigate the organization and function of two of the most basic cell components: the cell membrane and the cytoplasm--the gelatinous fluid that surrounds the structures in living cells. The work could lead to the creation of new drugs that take advantage of properties of cell organization to prevent the development of diseases. The team's findings will be published later this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Scientific American for April 7, 2008 presented a suggested timeline for photosynthesis on Earth.
Photosynthesis evolved early in Earth’s history. The rapidity of its emergence suggests it was no fluke and could arise on other worlds, too. As organisms released gases that changed the very lighting conditions on which they depended, they had to evolve new colors.
Scientific American for April 7, 2008 listed several ways that scientists might recognize that life exists on other planets.
Aside from colors reflected by plants, these other features could be signs of life:
Light of any color from deep violet through the near-infrared could power photosynthesis. Around stars hotter and bluer than our sun, plants would tend to absorb blue light and could look green to yellow to red. Around cooler stars such as red dwarfs, planets receive less visible light, so plants might try to absorb as much of it as possible, making them look black.
Researchers are now presenting evidence that desert heat, a little water, and meteorite impacts may have cooked up an early prerequisite for life: the dominance of “left-handed” amino acids, the building blocks of Earthly life.The ScienceDaily article is here.
A team of scientists has just left the country to explore a very strange lake in Antarctica; it is filled with, essentially, extra-strength laundry detergent. No, the researchers haven't spilled coffee on their lab coats. They are hunting for extremophiles -- tough little creatures that thrive in conditions too extreme for most other living things.
Hydrocarbons -- molecules critical to life -- are being generated by the simple interaction of seawater with the rocks under the Lost City hydrothermal vent field in the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
As Miller and his former student Jeffrey Bada brushed the frost from the vial that morning, they could see that something had happened. The mixture of ammonia and cyanide, normally colorless, had deepened to amber, highlighting a web of cracks in the ice. Miller nodded calmly, but Bada exclaimed in shock. It was a color that both men knew well—the color of complex polymers made up of organic molecules. Tests later confirmed Miller's and Bada’s hunch. Over a quarter-century, the frozen ammonia-cyanide blend had coalesced into the molecules of life: nucleobases, the building blocks of RNA and DNA, and amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The vial’s contents would support a new account of how life began on Earth and would arouse both surprise and skepticism around the world.
Researchers have rebuilt an entire genome from scratch, they report online today in Science. Although the team has yet to demonstrate that this DNA can substitute for the real thing, the work paves the way for customized bacteria that could efficiently produce drugs, biofuels, and other molecules useful to humankind.
Scientific American, for May 2004, published an interesting article that reviewed the modification of living organisms to have new characteristics, such as bacteria that glow.
The roots of synthetic biology extend back 15 years to pioneering work by Steven A. Benner and Peter G. Schultz. In 1989 Benner led a team at ETH Zurich that created DNA containing two artificial genetic "letters" in addition to the four that appear in life as we know it. He and others have since invented several varieties of artificially enhanced DNA. So far no one has made genes from altered DNA that are functional--transcribed to RNA and then translated to protein form--within living cells. Just within the past year, however, Schultz's group at the Scripps Research Institute developed cells (containing normal DNA) that generate unnatural amino acids and string them together to make novel proteins.
The full recovery of ecological systems, following the most devastating extinction event of all time, took at least 30 million years, according to new research from the University of Bristol.
Two research groups in the United Kingdom have been given permission to use hybrid human-animal embryos in research which aims to lead to the development of new therapies for debilitating human conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and stroke.
Astronomers from Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide -- two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids -- in a galaxy some 250 million light years away.
A California company reported today that it has, for the first time, cloned human embryos using DNA from adult skin cells. That's "an important first step" toward generating embryonic stem (ES) cell lines from such embryos, which can be used to study and treat diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's, says stem cell researcher George Daley of Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Astronomers at the Carnegie Institution have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red dust surrounding a distant star. The eight-million-year-old star, known as HR 4796A, is inferred to be in the late stages of planet formation, suggesting that the basic building blocks of life may be common in planetary systems.Here is the Live Science article on this topic.
In Mormon Belief: People Were Raised from the Dead (not a resurrection) I discussed the LDS belief that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, that is, brought him back to life after he had died. Lazarus was not resurrected, only brought back to life. I also mentioned that Jesus gave the power to His disciples to raise others from the dead. In Darwin’s Surprise I linked to an article explaining that scientists have succeeded in activating extinct viruses. Because a virus is a simple entity while a person is a complex organism, scientists still have a long way to go before they might be able to restore life to a dead person. But, activating an extinct virus is an amazing feat!
I've been thinking about bringing a dead person back to life. I don't understand very well the differences between a living person and a dead person, but the scriptures do give a partial idea from the religious paradigm of what would have to happen to have a dead person brought back to life. First, in Mormon Belief: Two Creations of the Earth I explained that before the earth was created physically, it was created spiritually in Heaven. I think of the spiritual creati0n being a blueprint for the physical creation. Second, in Mormon Belief: Spirit Offspring of God I explained that from a religious viewpoint, the basic difference between a person and an animal is that the person is a combination of a physical body and a spirit body, the spirit body being an offspring of God, while an animal has no spirit offspring of God. These two requirements would have to be met to have a person raised from the dead.
The first requirement is automatically satisfied, I think, because the dead person was once a living person and thus has a spiritual counterpart or blueprint. The second part would be satisfied if God "assigned" or permitted His spirit offspring to re-enter the physical body in such a way that the combination was once again a living soul (see Mormon Belief: The Soul is the Combination of a Spirit & a Body).
Will scientists ever be able to bring people back from the dead. This is just a guess, but I would say "probably", if God allows His spirit offspring to reenter the body.
