Please, help with question

[RomanRodinskiy]

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

[TheVat]

Help us understand what information you feel is lacking here.  You seem to have established that life began in seawater, so where would you expect to find seawater?  Are you trying to narrow it down from "the sea"?  Are there cellular contents that would point towards a particular sort of place in or around the sea?

In terms of certain chemicals and mineral concentrations, are there differences between open ocean and shorelines, estuaries, basins, lagoons, tidal zones...other areas?  

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, RomanRodinskiy said:

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

Any subtropical tide pool. Maybe more than one.

[Genady]

Ocean bottom.

[RomanRodinskiy]

On 3/25/2023 at 12:43 AM, TheVat said:

Help us understand what information you feel is lacking here.  You seem to have established that life began in seawater, so where would you expect to find seawater?  Are you trying to narrow it down from "the sea"?  Are there cellular contents that would point towards a particular sort of place in or around the sea?

In terms of certain chemicals and mineral concentrations, are there differences between open ocean and shorelines, estuaries, basins, lagoons, tidal zones...other areas?  

Yeah. Y u r right. I will be glad to see the most full answer, which u can give. Thanks.

 

[Sensei]

On 3/25/2023 at 2:46 AM, Genady said:

Ocean bottom.

Seriously? What amount of light is on the real ocean bottom? What amount of nutrients (in the prehistoric sea) are on the ocean bottom?

Check the average depth of the world's ocean..

https://www.google.com/search?q=average+depth+of+the+world's+ocean

 

The existence of organisms on the ocean floor (except for volcanoes) depends on "marine snow":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_snow

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Sensei

[Genady]

17 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Seriously?

What amount of light is on the real ocean bottom?

What amount of nutrients (in the prehistoric sea) are on the ocean bottom?

 

Yes.

None.

In some places, a lot. On average, about as much as anywhere else.

[NTuft]

On 3/24/2023 at 3:22 PM, RomanRodinskiy said:

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

Around the SPONCH CaFe.

[RomanRodinskiy]

Thanks everybody for your answers! If you maybe have some else thinkings about my question-welcome. I will be very glad for them.

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, RomanRodinskiy said:

Thanks everybody for your answers! If you maybe have some else thinkings about my question-welcome. I will be very glad for them.

Do you  understand what NTuft meant with SPONCH CaFe?

[mistermack]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:22 PM, RomanRodinskiy said:

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

Life started a long long time before the first cell, so really the question is flawed. And once evolution starts, it's composition doesn't need to stay the same, so analysing the composition of a modern cell doesn't necessarily point to the condition for the origin of life. 

Scientists currently argue about the date of the first life, or last universal common ancestor, but the likely date is constantly being pushed back further than first thought. But most put it about 500 million years before the formation of the first cells. 

[NTuft]

On 3/31/2023 at 5:11 AM, mistermack said:

Life started a long long time before the first cell, so really the question is flawed. And once evolution starts, it's composition doesn't need to stay the same, so analysing the composition of a modern cell doesn't necessarily point to the condition for the origin of life. 

Scientists currently argue about the date of the first life, or last universal common ancestor, but the likely date is constantly being pushed back further than first thought. But most put it about 500 million years before the formation of the first cells. 

I disagree that the question is flawed. First, are you positing spontaneous generation? Second, "once evolution starts", it enitrely conserves forms with alterations on prior template only arising through advantageous mutation, as I understand that theory. Third, what is the theory regarding "life" as something other than a cellular from, and could you provide a link to information about that?

Edited April 1, 2023 by NTuft
conjecture changed to theory

[Genady]

14 minutes ago, NTuft said:

alterations on prior template only arising through advantageous mutation

Only advantageous mutation, is incorrect, AFAIK: there is no such restriction. Other modes of changes in allele frequencies exist, such as genetic drift and genetic draft.

[mistermack]

54 minutes ago, NTuft said:

I disagree that the question is flawed. First, are you positing spontaneous generation? Second, "once evolution starts", it enitrely conserves forms with alterations on prior template only arising through advantageous mutation, as I understand that theory. Third, what is the theory regarding "life" as something other than a cellular from, and could you provide a link to information about that?

It's not a subject that you can get a simple answer for on a forum. If you are interested, do a bit of reading on the subject, and don't expect definitive answers, because we don't have them as yet. Just the best opinions so far from the people who are currently most informed on the subject.

As usual, wikipedia is the best starting platform. 

wikipedia : "Researchers generally think that current life descends from an RNA world, although other self-replicating molecules may have preceded RNA."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis  

[studiot]

On 3/24/2023 at 10:22 PM, RomanRodinskiy said:

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

 

On 3/27/2023 at 7:55 AM, RomanRodinskiy said:

Yeah. Y u r right. I will be glad to see the most full answer, which u can give. Thanks.

 

 

I guess you are asking about evidence for the origin of life ?

This is difficult and complicated because when life started on Earth neither the ocean nor the atmousphere consisted of anything like the current composition.

The original lifeforms changed both of these, introducing oxygen into the atmousphere (it didn't start of with any).

This period started about 3.5 billion years ago and took  2.5 to 3 billion years and there were few lifeforms and things changed very slowly.

Once the compositions had settled down to near current conditions geological evidence points to an 'explosion of lifeforms'  (Sedgewick) about 0.5 billion years ago., in the Cambrian period.

I think perhaps the life you are thinking of started at this time and led to the sequence of evolutionary development that results in the evidence for oxygen based life.

Here is a summary of the biochemical evidence that supports the idea of seawaterborne development from

The Nature of Biochemistry - Ernest Baldwin - Cambridge University Press.

It is very persuasive to note that so many disparate land and marine creatures analyse down match to the chemical distribution of ions in seawater.

[NTuft]

4 hours ago, Genady said:

Only advantageous mutation, is incorrect, AFAIK: there is no such restriction. Other modes of changes in allele frequencies exist, such as genetic drift and genetic draft.

Thank you to you and mistermack, I do need a refresher course. Genetic draft it seems is hitchhiking--along a selection sweep that is carrying a beneficial allele to expression frequency of 1? Genetic drift is an accounting for some randomness in allele distribution, but I still think it can be thought that the alleles in question arose and persisted because they were beneficial under the rubric of evolution?

3 hours ago, mistermack said:

It's not a subject that you can get a simple answer for on a forum. If you are interested, do a bit of reading on the subject, and don't expect definitive answers, because we don't have them as yet. Just the best opinions so far from the people who are currently most informed on the subject.

As usual, wikipedia is the best starting platform. 

wikipedia : "Researchers generally think that current life descends from an RNA world, although other self-replicating molecules may have preceded RNA."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis  

I think we would agree the question here makes assumptions. I would posit it'd be equally flawed to discount panspermia and Lamarckian inheritance of ruggedness from space microbes. However, I recognize that those, and catastrophism (as opposed to the gradualism that studiot alludes to) are not thought of as the "best opinions so far from the people who are currently most informed".

3 hours ago, studiot said:

[...]

The original lifeforms changed both of these, introducing oxygen into the atmousphere (it didn't start of with any).
[...]

 

Are you implying biological transmutation?

Tip o' the cap to Ringer and his 'bumbling' assistant's 'solution'.

On 3/31/2023 at 1:46 AM, StringJunky said:

Do you  understand what NTuft meant with SPONCH CaFe?

To try and get back on track, though of course studiot is on track, because of what I think the question is asking after, there is a reason I did not put it as CHNOPS.
+4

[Genady]

26 minutes ago, NTuft said:

it can be thought that the alleles in question arose and persisted because they were beneficial under the rubric of evolution?

This is not necessary. Most mutations are neutral. They might not cause any change in phenotype at all until some environmental or other genetic changes occur. Or they might cause a change in phenotype which is indifferent for the fitness. These neutral mutations might spread in population by a 'random walk' process. Or, they might get fixed because of population split. There are other possibilities as well.

[NTuft]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

This is not necessary. Most mutations are neutral. They might not cause any change in phenotype at all until some environmental or other genetic changes occur. Or they might cause a change in phenotype which is indifferent for the fitness. These neutral mutations might spread in population by a 'random walk' process. Or, they might get fixed because of population split. There are other possibilities as well.

If it reaches phenotypic expression I infer the mutation in question was in a gene coding for a protein. How could any difference in phenotype be neutral to fitness?

[mistermack]

19 minutes ago, NTuft said:

If it reaches phenotypic expression I infer the mutation in question was in a gene coding for a protein. How could any difference in phenotype be neutral to fitness?

You are talking as if there is only one "fitness". I think you have to include the effect of environment, as a driver of evolution. A new mutation might be neutral, or detrimental to fitness in one environment, but be very advantageous in another. If a new mutation allows an organism to better exploit a vacamt niche, then an evolutionary split can happen, with a new phenotype separating from it's cousins. 

Fitness and environment go hand in hand, so there are as many version of fitness as there are different environments. 

[NTuft]

  

9 minutes ago, mistermack said:

You are talking as if there is only one "fitness". I think you have to include the effect of environment, as a driver of evolution. A new mutation might be neutral, or detrimental to fitness in one environment, but be very advantageous in another. If a new mutation allows an organism to better exploit a vacamt niche, then an evolutionary split can happen, with a new phenotype separating from it's cousins. 

Fitness and environment go hand in hand, so there are as many version of fitness as there are different environments. 

Yes, reproductive fitness, which AFAIK was the only show in town there. Though "making poop" could be supposed to be the purpose of organism as much as reproduction. As it stands I will stop shit-posting, or coming up like a fish out of water for off-topic debate; though I do appreciate the work-up and perspective!

[studiot]

7 hours ago, NTuft said:

Are you implying biological transmutation?

Depends what you mean.

Biological agents are now recognised as being responsible for geological changes in the Earth's history.

But please remember that Roman posted this in homework help so we cannot do his project for him.

 

@RomanRodinskiy

You should research

The great oxygenation event

cyanobacteria

stromatolites

Here is a history of the atmousphere from Wikipedia

It divides history into 5 stages and I asked if you are interested in stage 5 where the sort of organised multicellular life we know occured.

Note the great oxygenation event occured ab little over 2 billionyears ago.

This might provide a good framework for your project.

 

Edited April 2, 2023 by studiot

[Genady]

6 hours ago, NTuft said:

How could any difference in phenotype be neutral to fitness?

For example, having free or attached ear lobes is neutral to fitness.

[Christian Ben]

On 3/25/2023 at 3:22 AM, RomanRodinskiy said:

Life is thought to have originated in seawater. Analyse the chemical composition of a cell and indicate the ideal place for the origin of life on our planet. 

The chemical composition of a typical cell includes water, proteins, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), carbohydrates, lipids, and various other small molecules. Water makes up the bulk of the cell and provides the medium for all of the cellular processes to occur. Proteins are composed of amino acids and are responsible for many of the functions within the cell, including catalyzing reactions, transporting molecules, and providing structure. Nucleic acids carry genetic information and are essential for the replication and expression of this information https://rudezgranite.com/memorials/". Carbohydrates provide energy for the cell and play a role in cell-cell communication. Lipids are a major component of the cell membrane and are involved in signaling and energy storage.

Seawater is an ideal environment for the origin of life for several reasons. Firstly, it contains many of the elements required for life, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. These elements are essential for the formation of the organic molecules that make up cells. Seawater also contains dissolved gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide, which can be used by early organisms for respiration and photosynthesis. In addition, seawater provides a stable environment for life, with relatively constant temperature, pH, and salinity.

Furthermore, the conditions in the early oceans were conducive to the formation of organic molecules. It is thought that the first organic molecules, such as amino acids and nucleotides, were formed through chemical reactions in the oceans. These molecules then combined to form more complex structures, ultimately leading to the formation of cells. The early oceans also provided protection from harmful ultraviolet radiation, which could have damaged early organic molecules.

Overall, seawater provides a rich and stable environment for the formation and evolution of life. While the exact mechanism of the origin of life is still unknown, it is clear that the early oceans played a critical role in this process.

[NTuft]

18 hours ago, studiot said:

The original lifeforms changed both of these, introducing oxygen into the atmousphere (it didn't start of with any).

Upon review I concur with the latter part of your statement that there was little or no accumulation of gasesous forms of molecular oxygen in the early atmosphere. I meant transmutation, having read your statement to say there was no oxygen, but you didn't say that. I have been trying to maintain this as an homework exercise, so I'll restate my point in disagreement with your cited premise that there are bacteria, which likely predate cyanobacteria, that can use another electron acceptor to respire anaerobically.

[studiot]

1 hour ago, NTuft said:

Upon review I concur with the latter part of your statement that there was little or no accumulation of gasesous forms of molecular oxygen in the early atmosphere. I meant transmutation, having read your statement to say there was no oxygen, but you didn't say that. I have been trying to maintain this as an homework exercise, so I'll restate my point in disagreement with your cited premise that there are bacteria, which likely predate cyanobacteria, that can use another electron acceptor to respire anaerobically.

At what point did the chemical precursors of life combine to from something 'alive' and did that something respire ?

 

This was something I meant for Roman to find out for himself, but have a look at this:

The very recent discovery of anerobic bacteria in deep sea hydrothermal vents suggests possible alternative mechanisms for the beginning of life.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16346061/

Edited April 2, 2023 by studiot