Obtain a 10 metric tonne vessil. Fill it with Sterile Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN) for IV. add to it a compliment of all 20 amino acids, and the ones that humans dont use. heat it up to 35decrees C. Now comes the hard part: Probably using the enzyme that copies DNA as a model, create an enzyme that can put amino acids together in chains as they randomly come in contact with it. now make that enzyme not stop making a chain until it comes into contact with some activator ion like say chromium2+. Now add 1L^3 of this enzyme and 1L^3 of a saturated solution that contains Cr2+ ions into one corner of the vessil at the same time. at the point of impact on the fluid protein chains would be made at random that are very small: 2 to 5 proteins long. But the two chemicals will natrually difuse into the fluid at a fixed rate and the number of collisions would decrease as they did therefor at the end chains will be of much greater length, say 1to-2K long. It will all happen compleately at random so theoreticall any protein that has ever existed or will exist will form, including enzymes that work on other proteins which will speed up the process. Thus within a year I suppose and entire evolution will occur from life to death and Man has done exactly what god did in a much lesser time. I don't mean to sound egotistical, it's just how I see the facts. The fact after that, is that you could do the same thing with the amino acids and synthetic enzymes in any environmental condition you can simulate inside that vessel. We can essentialy "know" what life could be growing on a planet that we could never visit but that we could analise by spectrometry through telescope. I think it could be fun.-- LED Prism, Nov 23 2003 Stanley Miller and his experiment http://www.ucsd.tv/miller-urey/Dr Miller is not looking too bad! [bungston, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Perhaps the addition of clay is what is needed?? http://www.ncbi.nlm...76428&dopt=Abstract[bungston]Man has already created a virus from scratch http://news.bbc.co....ci/tech/2122619.stm [bungston, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Man has already created a virus from scratch http://news.bbc.co....ci/tech/2122619.stm [PeterSilly, Oct 04 2004] Stanley Miller (1956) completed an experiment very similar to this. Taking a mixture of chemicals in a sealed container, those that he proposed existed in primeval atmospheres, he added UV light and copious electrical impulses to simulate lightening.
This experiment, like yours, failed and succeeded in equal measure. He was able to create some amino acids which in time may have developed further into proteins and DNA. He also managed to create some spherules, but not anything like the cell walls of plants and animals (cellulose sugars and lipids respectively). He failed to create the amino structures within a spherule despite years of trying. That looks like where your experiment would also fail. DNA does not make life... DNA within a lipid membrane is a monumental step closer, but still not it.
However, the ethics of letting man create life is as complicated as man's tampering with existing life forms. I'm not sure I support the idea of everyone creating their own life and I say that from an areligious perspective.-- jonthegeologist, Nov 23 2003 // we could analise by spectrometry through telescope. I think it could be fun.//
Wow. Not every day I get an offer like *that*-- yamahito, Nov 23 2003 I'd say his profile page is right on the money.-- waugsqueke, Nov 23 2003 I wouldn't touch his spectrometer with yours..-- po, Nov 23 2003 I can see this idea evolving into the cottage industry that produces rat's asses grown inside of square beakers.-- Tiger Lily, Nov 23 2003 Proteins do not life make. A pile of car parts on my driveway will not get me to work. Context is everything. An interesting topic, but this partifular spin is not too new. [Prism], if you are interested, I have linked the Miller experiment mentioned above as well as another interesting recent experiment (you will have to go to the library or have full text access to read the whole thing, plus the editorial in Science). Interestingly enought, my search for a good link on Miller turned up a lot of creationist pages using the failure of his experiment (to create new critters) as evidence for creation.-- bungston, Nov 23 2003 [UB] - it may interest you, if you weren't already aware, that there is an additional problem. The amount of time statistically expected to randomly select the range of protiens we posess is far greater than the lifetime of the known universe. Presumably there is some undiscovered mechanism by which protiens are selected. (Or, we are wrong about (a) when the big bang happened (b) that the big bang happened.)-- Detly, Nov 23 2003 //The amount of time statistically expected to randomly select the range of protiens we posess is far greater than the lifetime of the known universe.//
[Detly, UB] - I was not aware of that. I would like to see the math, or a link, please.-- bungston, Nov 23 2003 sure, the amount of time to randomly make people, per say, would be infinite, but protein based reactions will occur that COULD occur in a similar environment. The idea is that It could create different life. I don't think that god "intended" people to evolve from the first little batch of amino acids that poped up several billion years ago, it was just a one in infinety chance reaction, as the tank would be.-- LED Prism, Nov 24 2003 This seems to be a theory rather than an invention - can man create an environment in which proteins would self-assemble into self-replicating chains, a primitive definition of life? The point in such an experiment being, ultimately, to disprove the need for a creator.
While not creating DNA sequences from scratch, in July this year a team of scientists managed to create (assemble) a polio-like virus from a set of DNA. I would have thought this proved that a creator is not required to create "life".-- PeterSilly, Nov 24 2003 [Peter Silly] The ability to create any variant of 'life' from a set of constituents does not //ultimately disprove the need for a creator//. It still leaves many questions unanswered such as "why do the laws of physics and chemistry take a form in which they dictate the behaviour of the constituents in your experiment and allow it to succeed?". I am no creationist *spits* but if you want to make inferences from experimental data you have to be very careful about the scope of them! Obviously the real "need" for a creator is a psychological one rather than a logical one and I suspect that no amount of the application of logical or scientific enquiry will ever settle the debate.-- dobtabulous, Nov 24 2003 [dobtab] My ineloquently expressed point was that I believed the inventors of the experiment believed that its success would remove the need for a creator. Like you, I think that's a very limited view of what a creator is for (ie. create life).-- PeterSilly, Nov 24 2003 //sure, the amount of time to randomly make people, per say, would be infinite, but protein based reactions will occur that COULD occur in a similar environment//
You misunderstand. Using thermodynamics/statistical mechanics, it's been shown that (to the limit of our current knowledge) the amount of time for all of these reactions to been seen is several orders of magnitude greater than the age of the universe.
[bungston] - I'm working on finding a reference, but it's pretty obscure stuff. I've emailed a lecturer, but if he doesn't know, you'll have to wait until January, when I can go through my old notes. :)-- Detly, Nov 24 2003 //Or, we are wrong about (a) when the big bang happened (b) that the big bang happened.//
...(c) that the big bang happened all by its widdle self.
//The eye has independently evolved more than 40 times, that we know about//
...in life that *already* exists. That doesn't extrapolate to mean that it could have evolved that quickly *from scratch*.
//a team of scientists managed to create (assemble) a polio-like virus from a set of DNA//
Create and assemble are two different things, as true creation is making something from nothing. Let's see 'em make a thing of DNA from scratch, and make THAT into a virus (i.e., incomplete life form). No copying allowed.-- galukalock, Nov 24 2003 //The amount of time statistically expected to randomly select the range of protiens we posess is far greater than the lifetime of the known universe.//
How interesting that statisticians arrive at this conclusion and say there must be something more going on then, rather than say their math is clearly wrong.-- waugsqueke, Nov 25 2003 [waugs] its a peculiarity of statistics that says it would take >4.6billion years to ensure that this would occur. Its perfectly possible that it happened first time.
For example, entropy is a mathematical quanta of randomness. Entropy says its perfectly possible for all the oxgyen in the room to jump the other side, leaving you and I gasping for air. Its a statistical probability, yet it doesn't happen (or at least, not yet). The reverse is true of DNA within a cell wall : it's mathematically incredibly unlikely (4.6billion years of chance in fact), but yet it happened. No outside influence.
Watch out for those O2 molecules - they're plotting something.-- jonthegeologist, Nov 25 2003 //rather than say their math is clearly wrong.//
The math itself isn't wrong, but physicists will quite cheerfully admit their application and underlying assumptions are. :)-- Detly, Nov 25 2003 Isn't there currently a theory making the rounds that the universe itself is going through evolution every time it is created/destroys itself? The exercise developing places more likely to host/create life forms?-- normzone, Sep 29 2006 I do recall reading a New Scientist article about the collapse and reformation of complex structures. Seems the math can be worked out to show a small but finite probability that a simple structure will collapse into a -more- complex one. Interestingly the more complex the structure is, the higher the possibility of "upwards" collapse. This would be an accelerating factor in molecular evolution which could increase the speed at which complexity appears above rates expected from sheer randomness.-- BunsenHoneydew, Sep 29 2006 When people said things on artificial life, I wondered why it was implied that it was on the computer. Now I'm wondering why it's implied that this evolution will happen off the computer.
I think the next "lifeform" that humans will see will be a computer virus, connecting many computers together for the common good (of the viruses, that is).-- ihope127, Sep 30 2006 random, halfbakery