Bacteria from Mono Lake are to drastically curb the fantasies of theorists in the origin of life

[systemity]

I am in a celebratory mood today. It has been reported (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/02/AR2010120203102.html) that a NASA-sponsored research has resulted in discovery of bacteria, isolated from the water of Mono Lake (California) that contains high concentrations of arsenic, which not only utilize arsenic in oxidation-reduction reactions but also have it embedded, instead of phosphorus, into their DNA and RNA.

All life on Earth, from microbes to elephants and to humans, is based on a same genetic model which requires six essential elements (C, O, H, N, S, and P). Researchers from the National Astrobiology Institute of Arizona State University have found a bacterium where phosphorus has been fully replaced by arsenic, a highly toxic cousin of phosphorus.

Not only the scientific community has been stirred by the news. The White House and Congress called NASA asking whether another line of earthly life has been found. At a NASA press conference that was held Thursday, it was stated that the discovery does not prove the existence of a second line of life. However, it has demonstrated the possibility of a greater diversity of the existing forms of life on Earth.

In the second (and not yet the last) part of my previous posting "On the origin of life on Earth" (systemity.livejournal.com/379376.html), I provided a reference link to my theory of the origin of life that was published about 30 years ago (www.matrixreasoning.com/pdf/OriginOfLifeBrief.pdf ; www.matrixreasoning.com/pdf/OriginOfLife.pdf ; www.matrixreasoning.com/pdf/LifeOrigin3.pdf). The theory suggests that the basis of the earthly life had been formed before metabolism and before the emergence of nucleic acids and proteins. The foundation of life that had started evolution was based on the capability of a simplest self-organizing system of the most basic molecules to accumulate external energy noises in the form of magnesium oxide, the first macroergic component of life and the ATP precursor.

Thank God the arsenic substitution of phosphorus nixes a slew of hypotheses on the origin of life that are based on the lottery logic -- a belief that a certain unique event must have resulted in production of the "right" nucleic acid. The substitution of phosphorus by arsenic in the newly discovered bacteria is an unchallengeable proof of a simple truth that has never occurred in the minds of proponents of connecting nucleic acids by any possible means to the problem of the origin of life. That simple truth is: in order for life to be able to be inherited, it should have already existed.

In my next postings I will explain how eukaryotes had originated from oligotrophic bacteria that cannot live in the environment with high contents of substrates, as well as why the chemical structure of chlorophylls is what it is, and why eukaryotes have junk DNA.