... That's because Mars today has carbon dioxide, but hardly any nitrogen-which is also needed for making amino acids. Some scientists suspect that nitrogen gas existed on Mars, but was blasted away by asteroid impacts billions of years ago. Source: Scientific American http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=9952573C-E7F2-99DF-32F2928046329479 Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek

Jeff Bada has redone the Miller experiment with startling results http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=9952573C-E7F2-99DF-32F 2928046329479 </HTML>

... use the term "RNA World" to refer to both the strong and the weak claims about RNA's role prior to DNA and proteins. Here, I will use the term "RNA first" for the strong claim that RNA was involved in the origin of life. Read the rest at Scientific American http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=B7AABF35-E7F2-99DF-309B8CEF02B5C4D7 Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek

...the first replicators, may have been not organic molecules at all, but inorganic crystals-minerals, little bits of clay.'' - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, page 21. Source: Scientific American http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=B7AABF35-E7F2-99DF-309B8CEF02B5C4D7 -- __________ |im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

... had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself." When Dawkins wrote these words 30 years ago, DNA was the most likely candidate for this role. As we shall see, several other replicators have now been suggested. Source: Scientific American http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=B7AABF35-E7F2-99DF-309B8CEF02B5C4D7 Posted by Robert Karl Stonjek