Life might be more common in the universe than we thought
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
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What do we know about the origins of life? From the formation of the solar system to microbes evolving into bipedal mammals with opposable thumbs, today we will look over the four major theories about how life began.
Many thanks to Jordi Busqué for helping with this video jordibusque.com/
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0:00 Intro
0:52 Life Might Be More Common in The Universe Than We Thought
3:20 What do we know?
7:07 Bottom Up
11:02 Top-Down
12:30 RNA First
15:47 Metabolism First
18:23 Summary
19:16 Learn Science with Brilliant - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
"I'd rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned." - Richard Feynman
Pasteur had one more element to his experiment: after the long time with no spoiling he broke the neck, which gave dust access. The broth spoiled in the expected amount of time. He thereby proved that something in the air, that couldn’t pass through a swan neck and was therefore not air molecules, carried the seeds of spoiling. Thus the germ theory was further underpinned.
Thanks for this important piece of information.
That is not the only reason. The other reason why Pasteur used the swan neck flask was because his critics claimed that boiling in a sealed jars spoiled air, destroying the Vital Force (vitalism) and thus prevented spontaneous generation. However, using an open system boiling, that used a fluid air lock, avoided these criticisms (vitalism persisted in England and Germany well after Friedrich Wohler synthesised Urea, which proved to most scientists that life is not made of special matter).
In fact, Lazzaro Spallanzani also boiled broths and sealed the broths in jars in 1765, showing that the sterilised broths did not spoil, but his findings were eventually rejected because other scientists failed to rigorously repeat his experiment (they did not boil the broths sufficiently to kill durable bacteria spores, and the small spores were not visible under 18th-19th century microscopes). Also, vitalism resurged in popularity in the 18th century, so his critics also claimed boiling damaged the vital force and prevented spontaneous generation.
In the end, Pasture's experiments did not end the belief in spontaneous generation, it remained accepted dogma among a stubborn circle of scientists in England and Germany, in particular, well after his seminal experiments; the British holdouts also rejected Darwinian Evolution (indeed, the brilliant Irish scientist John Tyndall repeated his experiments in Britain with great rigour, but even he failed to convince several stubborn influential British scientists).
Rather, the belief in Spontaneous generation gradually faded towards the end of the 19th - early 20th century because scientists began to understand that life is extremely complex and even the most simple of organisms could not spontaneously form by chance. There was also, particularly in Britain, a growing belief in Evolution, which convicted many scientists that life gradually evolved from a simple to more complex forms, see Darwin's Warm Little Pond letter to J. D Hooker:
"My dear Hooker,
... It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.
But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, - light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." - Charles Darwin, 1871
The final end of Spontaneous Generation is considered to have occurred in 1924 upon the publication, by Alexander Oparin, of his influential hypothesis on the origin of life ... as a natural, gradual and stepwise process, a ladder of creation very similar to what we believe today.
Oparin, A. I. Proiskhozhdenie zhizni. Moscow: Izd. Moskovskii Rabochii, 1924. (in Russian)
English translation:
Oparin, A. I. "The origin of life", translation by Ann Synge. In: Bernal, J. D. (ed.), The origin of life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 1967, p. 199-234
Refs.:
Farley, J., 1972. The spontaneous generation controversy (1859-1880): British and German reactions to the problem of abiogenesis. Journal of the History of Biology, 5(2), pp.285-319.
Farley, J., 1977. The spontaneous generation controversy from Descartes to Oparin. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
@@DiamonddavejOMG... Did you copy paste wikipedia..?!??😆
@@martf1061 Us science guys often paste from Wiki. Just to make quick comments to clarify things for Joe Public. I post to dozens of videos every day
@@martf1061 I read a book. Farley's 1977 book, is one of best books I read. Really interesting to understand how many very good scientists explored and debated very difficult problems.
Once you start listening to Sabine you cant stop she is so brilliant.
This video is excellent. It takes three years of studying biology to understand how cells could have come to be, and you summarised the basics in a few minutes.
It took you- yes you three years of studying biology to understand how cells could have come to be did it? At which university was that?
@@vhawk1951kl Actually it takes three years of curriculum, namely: Introduction to biology and evolutionary biology in 1st year, celular biology and genetics in 2nd year, and finally microbiology in 3rd year. Of course, we get far more than the basics depicted here, though she summarised the grasp of it pretty well.
@@podemosurss8316 I was not asking about 'it, but about you
@podemosurss8316. _…” 3 years of studying biology to understand how cells come to be “_ ???
Try again, podemos. Add up all the PhDs who have worked on this issue since Miller & Urey ( or since Shroedinger’s book “What Is Life”) and you get hundreds of thousands of years & we still don’t know how to do it.
@@teefkay2 Kind of? We know what constituting parts are fundamental for a cell, and those 3 years are for understanding the basics, not for knowing all about the topic.
2:26 "When our planet formed it was a big ball of molten rock and that did one hell of a pasteurization" I definitely laughed out loud.
The proposed collision with a planetesimal to create the moon would yield similar results. Naming the collider Thea was ok, but Pasteure may be a better name?
same! Laughed out loud :D
@@jamesdriscoll_tmp1515 The moon will henceforth be known as _the Pasteurizer._
Maybe it was never a molten ball - Dr Thomas Gold thought that the Earth accumulated from a random infall of stony, metallic ,carbonaceous and icy micro meteorites (particles, gas, clumps, chunks etc but all being at the comic background temperature plus only a few degrees AFTER the sun became radiative . The radioactive elements would have warmed the mixed up mass slightly and as it grew in size the gravitational compression resulted in adiabatic (?) heating -atomic motion creating friction I guess it could be called . the infall was initially at walking speed proportional to the mass and gravitational attraction --virtually no heating effect and any that was ,radiated into space from the surface (conduction into the interior would seem to be minimal ) The resulting mass was undifferentiated since it had not been molten so not allowing the heavier elements to fall to the centre or for volatiles and water to evaporate to space -they were effectively trapped . As the ball grew larger the infall velocity increased and so did the kinetic energy that became heat but without any 'greenhouse' effect from an atmosphere that was mostly radiated back to space .(and each impact was only local heating again radiated into space from a gigantic ball )
At some point the mass had significant compression at the core and the radioactive elements decay adding heat -he proposed that the CORE thus melted first and then settling of the heavier elements could begin (Uranium or higher being at the very centre -maybe this provided the heat to continue melting the interior and creating the magma . His theory was that the surface, and the crust down to many kilometres depth, remained UNmelted and still a random collection of whatever the cosmic debris was composed of . The heat FROM THE CORE was moving upwards rather than the molten blob cooling from the outside as in the given theory. He maintains that the Earth was therefore never "Pasteurized" and this difference has enormous consequences for his (and Fred Hoyle/Wickramsinghe et al ) conception of how life arose on Earth.
That trio were the modern proponents of Panspermia based on the expectation that 'bacterial' life was ubiquitous in the universe in the interstellar medium gas clouds and anywhere other than on stars or such (not fully agreeing with their ideas or the extension to the origin of pandemics etc but Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle DID unarguably contribute greatly to cosmology, nuclear synthesis etc etc -even to the physiology of hearing -googling reccomended before dismissing their more iconoclastic ideas....) Gold extended his basic thesis to the origin of hydrocarbons, oil, helium and the existence of the 'hot,deep biosphere' - otherwise inexplicable by conventional theories.
If the Earth was NOT "Pasteurized" and life IS abundant in the universe then the starting point becomes massively more likely --the origin of the 'seeds' is still not resolved but at least billions of more years and genesis sites are provided. (incidently I SAW the fall of the Murchison meteorite on a Saturday morning in 1969 as a 16 year old while walking the wing of a glider in the morning -through the only gap in the trees surrounding our airfield (at Mildura - several hundred kilometres away ) -no one else did until the news reported it I was not believed... The Murchison meteorite is world famous for containing a string of amino acids not thought to be possible then -there is a book titled "The Genesis Stone" about this )
Perhaps Dr Hossenfelder could devote an episode to an assessment of the work of Dr Thomas Gold and possibly the deep earth biosphere 'problem' ,abiogenic origin of oil (also a Russian hypothesis) and the interelated subjects like source of the oceans ... I always enjoy reading Dr Hossenfelder's 'tutorials' and her reliably enlightening plus thought provoking ways of elucidating subjects -- I am sure she could add much to the contentious but largely forgotten scientific debate that the other named physicists ignited in this field.
That would be very appreciated.
The fact that complex metabolism can exist without RNA, DNA or cell membranes is really mind blowing. I think the metabolism first approach is an immense step in completing the picture of how life came to be.
How reassuring, life has no meaning.
@@jayr526 well, it certainly is liberating.
@@jayr526 life has all the meaning we give it. Life is meaning.
@@jayr526 would you rather have life have a meaning that you completely disagree with?
Metabolism cannot exist without a cell. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.
Without any doubt the most intriguing topic we can deal with to understand where we come from. What a great idea "... that someone is there to admire its beauty...". Many thanks, Sabine.
Beauty is an evolved characteristic for survival. We are attracted to beauty as evolution leaves nothing important without an instinct. Being attracted to our surroundings makes us pay attention to them to find food and not be another's meal. We are attracted to the sky to tell what the weather is doing.
@@bobs182evolution didn't happen!
@@iamBlackGambit Evolution doesn't "do" anything. Evolution is entirely passive as some living organisms survive while others don't survive.
@@bobs182 ok forget about the origin, dna exist you think order in dna is a product of evolution and chance?
@@iamBlackGambit DNA is a chemical process that acts the way it does in a specific set of circumstances. All atoms/molecules act in specific ways. Hydrogen and oxygen "know" how to combine forming water which has the emergent characteristic of wetness. Chemistry and physics are not chance, they describe specific ways that matter acts. Why don't you concern yourself about how a creator could have specific capabilities yet you can't accept that material knows how to act. The specific capabilities of your mind are due to the actions of the brain and the actions you attribute to god are an innate aspect of matter. You think your mind and brain are 2 independent entities so you want to separate the world into mind and matter. Everything is a noun and a verb as there is no object of matter without action of matter.
I recently discovered Sabine in my life and I am fascinated about her. Look at this video! FANTASTIC! Out of so many things I could comment on, I just emphasise the sense of humor by now. 😂. What a inspiring video, what an inspiring person. Well-done to her and the team involved🎉🎉🎉
"It's basically the many worlds interpretation of organic chemistry" is *such* a perfect metaphor, and an amazing engagement with your audience. Brilliant writing, gets the point across perfectly, and knows who you're talking to. These little moments are why I keep coming back for new perspectives, understandings, and ideas, across a variety of disciplines. Thank you for your work!
I don’t understand what you mean by being “the many worlds interpretation of organic chemistry”. In a “metaverse” made up of an infinite or near infinite number of universes, anything, including life will happen. In other words, everything including the unlikely event of life emerging, is explained purely in terms of time and chance. The emerging view of how life originated covered by Sabine in this video is that life is a result of natural and universal processes which occur when ever the right conditions are met, but not in multiple universes, but in this particular universe governed by particular laws of nature. This is why life in our universe may well be much more common than commonly believed. In other words, the emergence of life is not the result of some incredibly unlikely event occurring, but as a result of natural processes that can and does occur on a regular basis throughout this particular universe.
@@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913You left a great comment about "the many worlds interpretation" but then I see my reply below that suggests you posted something illogical, or that TH-cam slapped in the wrong name.
So if you are not religious or illogical, I apologize.
If you maybe said something resembling dogma, read on...
Oh no! I just noticed the "pastor" in your username!
🤣😭🤪🤪
You probably also don't understand Pew Research's finding that USA's atheists are MORE RELIGIOUS than Western European CHRISTIANS.
How to end these delusions?
Get local control out of USA public schools.
"Quickest way to prejudice, join a religion and everyone else is wrong. Modern Religion, groups exclusively male inventing traditions to control women, mostly, and everyone else. Religious people, science discovered, feel uncomfortable with ambiguity and prefer authoritarians like preachers, pundits, Popes, Trump, Hitler etc. That's how the incredibly religious community of Uvalde Texas got such stellar performance from law officers while a teenager slaughtered nineteen mostly ten year olds inside their school. - Steampunk Mark Plimsoll"
@@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913 I think the analogy works roughly like this. The existence (or non-existence) of a "metaverse" doesn't adequately explain origin. Similarly the various approaches Sabine described are tantalisingly close but don't adequately resolve the origin of life question.
@@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913
The emergence of life may very well be common but *multicellular* animal lives' emergence is probably very rare.
@@solconcordia4315 Wasn't actually evolution from single cell to multicellular organism clearer process not looking that complicated? There are colonial organisms...
Sabine has condensed and explained these research directions about life's origin in the clearest way that I, as a non-scientist, have seen. She would be great as a TV host of a science series dealing with topics such as those on her channel here. We need her to reach many more people in order to spread science literacy. Her wit and charm are special.
@@nadsenoj8719 It has been over ten years since I had a television plugged into an antenna and watched broadcast TV. It is long dead already for me.
it's simply dying out as the old generation dies.
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
Why would you watch TV, when you have TH-cam?
💯
I think it's hilarious and brilliant that Sabine and Anton released videos of completely opposite viewpoints in modern day science. It's amazing that we can have two such open minded approaches to possible life in the universe. And that it's available in open media as subjective theories. Thank you so much for being there for us.
I dont think they have opposite viewpoints necessarily, but simply gone over different data and evidences
If you torture the data enough, it will confess to anything
@@The0Yapster Another way to say that is if you are a bad scientist you can find ways to make the data fit your model, regardless of what the data says. That’s one of the defining traits of pseudoscience. But if you are a good scientist, you create falsifiable hypotheses and honestly try to evaluate if the data supports your model and if it doesn’t you try different hypotheses
If you’re talking about the same Anton I’m thinking of, he puts out a lot of bad science in general.
@@wallissimpson5414Anton Petrov? how so?
I first read At Home In The Universe like 15-20 years ago, and thought Kaufman's ideas were pretty revolutionary back then. Very exciting to hear that there has since been a significant amount of experimental evidence supporting his theories.
Same here, pleasantly surprised to be reminded of those ideas! “We the expected”
Probably one of the most interesting and important questions ever.
Almost as mindblowing as the existence of life itself is the fact that it probably didnt even take a billion years for life to form on earth. That's basically nothing.
And just a few billion years later, life became complex enough to question where it came from in the first place.
Reminds me of that one Carl Sagan quote "we are an example of what hydrogen atoms can do, given 15 billion years of cosmic evolution"
Right, hydrogen atoms. ANYTHING but intelligent design. And if there is intelligent design, its only ok of its aliens doing it. But never God. If its God, it means there are requirements apparently. If aliens wsntvus as slaves, we can live with that. But a God giving us 10 commandments means total rebellion.
Enters Optional Chronology : " Dear Cena , John, just wait and see those 15bln.+ hydrogen atoms start undoing themselves...oooooppsssiieee...."
@@aleksandrpeshkov6172 Nothing of what you just wrote makes any sense haha. Good job.
@@JohnCena8351 Enters Anti-Turing Test : " Dear John, Test Passed , Congratz..."
@@aleksandrpeshkov6172 passing an "Anti Turning Test" would make me a computer tho.
And although the Ladies often call me one, I'm certainly not a machine.
Much gratitude for elevating and clarifying this line of research!
Thanks, much appreciated!
@@SabineHossenfelderI know I’m late to this conversation, and I’m a simple man, not a professional scientist by any means. I do have a question though. If life is so prevalent then why from what I understand does it seem that all life on this planet has a single origin, so I’m told. I’ve heard the explanation that that life either prevented other life or out competed the others, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense to me. Even today, with a world that is teaming with competitive life it seems all the time I am hearing of new discoveries of ecosystems that have been isolated and evolved independently for many years. like in caves or deep underground or even isolated under many feet of ice, yet they all seem to be related somehow. As I said at the beginning I am a simple man, but I haven’t really heard a reason for this that seemed to make much sense to me. Just curious. Thanks for the video.🤗
@@aaronwernz5788- Well, they developed on a long time-scale too. The first bacteria were born in a world full of simple proteins and free-floating organic compounds to consume, so they did. Once they came onto the scene, there were a lot less raw materials floating around for it to happen again.
Also, although isolated ecosystems happen at our scale, many species of single-celled organisms are pretty much the same over the entire globe. Why? Because the wind carries them for miles.
So thankful that Lemmy could be involved in the program.
lovely video, thanks Sabine. This is really interesting and really makes one think about the complexity of life, this is a really hard endeavor.
Excellent video! I really get a lot out of watching your content! I'm an undergraduate physics student and I also really appreciate your videos on climate change and social issues as well! Keep on keeping on! Hope you have a wonderful week Sabine!
-Adam
If you really want to understand the origin of life problem, take a look at some of the TH-cam videos produced by Dr. James Tour who is a Biochemist.
@@SpotterVideo James Tour is a hack who denies all science which does not agree with his interpretation of the bible don’t waste any time listening to that fool.
@muzaffarkrylov2365 What? You follow religious nutcases poking holes in real science? That's how you advise others to spend thier time?
I cannot believe you know or practice science, with your mean-spirited "kill the messenger" reaction to an interesting and provocative subject, published fearlessly in our religiously deluded endangered world (at least the biosphere, or maybe just crop-producing ecosystems...).
Show us your sense of humor, if just as a sign of intelligent life.
@@SpotterVideo that dude has already been exposed to be an idiot by professor Dave.
@@SpotterVideo Tour's religious agenda makes his conclusion suspect.
Love the staircase at the end representing a spiral. Nice
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
A nice summary! Most microbiologists I know have assumed these conclusions for years. All the actual evidence is absolutely critical though.
One has to aim at the top of the mountain in order to make the climb and receive the view !!
Thanks you for this witty educationing. I can certainly appreciate and absorb knowledges that are presented with such genuine enthusiasm and honesty.
7:10 after so many years, at last I understand what bottom up means. Thank you, Dr.!
That the autocalytic networks are so widely distributed it is indeed mind-blowing and yes, it could be one of the best clues we get about how common life could be in the universe which is really exciting to think about, also makes me rethink if there could be non- RNA or DNA based life out there, maybe there's another self-sustaining path to create a system that can have Darwinian evolution throughout generations outside of what we know and have... maybe not, but this is so exciting!
Just a suggestion, could you put the resources you cite on the description? the other day I realized they weren't there, I mean, it's not hard to search for it because the information is in the video itself but I would really appreciate it.
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
We should think of autolytic networks as inevitable due how these chemicals interact. They are widely distributed because these chemicals always self organize in this way
She puts her sources behind a paywall on her Patreon :(
@@deithlan oh... Didn't know that thanks, I guess it's not a big deal since everything is mentioned on the videos but I don't know if there are exceptions that are in the Patreon's page
unfortunately, we're not seeing new microbes or whatsoever, every now & then, thru autocalytic processes
yes, zero evidence
Fascinating video! This kind of work definitely needs way more recognition and attention from the public. I'm extremely interested to find out, if there is abundant life in the Universe, what kind of progression did they endure? If it's all disconnected and random with some dying off long ago and others flourishing (like for species on our planet), or if it all sprouted at the same time as to discover each other around a certain time period (considering the difference in time depending on location to objects with a lot of mass, i.e black holes). The latter may be a bit too hopeful, but it's still nice to think about, while also hoping they're not half as chaotic as we are...
One benefit to the "bottom up" approach compared to many worlds is that if an experiment using such an approach actually produced life, that would be a pretty strong piece of evidence and a reason to explore circumstances consistent with that experiment. The problem is that you have to do tons of "guess and try"...unless one of the others educates that guess enough to narrow it down.
The bottom up approach _is_ what she humorously refers to as the many worlds interpretation of organic chemistry. Other than that I agree with you.
@@lucofparis4819 My point was that there *is* a preferred solution in principle when trying the bottom up approach (or possibly a couple), and these could be experimentally verified in a way it's not clear you could do with the many worlds interpretation. It's an issue of finding a needle in the haystack with costly guessing experiments rather than an issue of "we're not sure we can test this even in principle".
@@TheMelnTeam Wait, are you talking about the actual many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics rather than the joke Sabine made? In which case you may or may not be right. I say this because it's not entirely clear that the most likely chemical pathways that we eventually find - the proverbial needle - do not end up being several possible solutions that equally fit the data.
In other words, it's not yet clear that there couldn't be multiple branches of possible pathways that could start out under the same initial conditions and environment, effectively mirroring the degree of theoretical underdetermination found in quantum mechanics.
Another problem is that it's probably not a single "crucible" giving rise to everything. There are a vast number of environments on Earth (even early Earth), and it's likely that chemical products from many different sources needed to intermingle together in order to get the necessarily complex chemical mix for life to kick-start.
Any single experiment with a single set of conditions (thus producing a limited number of reactants) is unlikely to ever suddenly have proto-life appear in it, unless it's a LOT simpler than we currently know.
TYSM for the upload Sabine! You are one of my role models, and someone I look up to. Thank's for the content :)
Good Girl! 👌
Incidentally, Miss, are you VEGAN? 🌱
@@TheWorldTeacher vegetarian, as she mentioned in 'LOST IN MATH'. But vegan? She talked to much about cheese for that
@@TheWorldTeacher a question we are able to formulate and ponder because our ancestors ate meat.
Lots to unpack in this video. The first one I will be watching TWICE. Thanks Sabine 👍 🤔
Thank you Dr. Sabine for an interesting discussion.
What really struck me was that, as you say, for over 1000 years Spontaneous Generation was the well accepted process for the origin of life. I wonder if during those thousand years various people came along and said “you know, there really are problems with this theory”, but they were disregarded because they didn’t follow the accepted line of thinking.
I think it comes down to “if what you believe is false would you want to know the truth?” This question applies to me, too.
The core mistake was the belief the Greeks had that they could understand nature through intuition.
You can't really blame the Greeks, because it's natural for all humans to assume that our intuition, our eyes, our ears, etc are reliable tools. Which is why Greek explanations for natural phenomenona survived for so long.
It's only when the scientific method was born (that we can't trust our human intuition, senses, eyes, ears, etc), that real progress began to be made.
@@tylerdurden3722 The shadow of Aristotle loomed large for very long. It was not until real science began to be done in the Renaissance, that it was allowed to disagree with the great wise men of antiquity, Aristotle in particular. 'Ipse dixit' (he said it himself) was a common expression used by medieval scholars to justify their positions.
@@juanausensi499 Ah, so the original form of Source: I made it the fuck up
It’s the same problem now. Origin of life researchers (non-chemists) try to sell to the public and the media that they have the slightest clue on how life began, but real chemistry experts like Dr James tour debunk their claims pretty easily and makes them look like the fools they are
th-cam.com/video/r4sP1E1Jd_Y/w-d-xo.html
Yeah just like macro evolution today.
Delightful! ... detailed ... methodical.. insightful .. all done within a melodic narrative .. thankyou !
LOL... I enjoy the deadpan humor, almost as much as I enjoy learning about, and better understanding physics.
Great post Sabine. Fascinating material ! I always enjoy tuning into your newest post and learning something new... stretching my brain... 🤩
As someone who works on the fringes of this field, I think there is perhaps some misconception of what the "RNA world" means. Firstly, you need to know that RNA can not only store information, but catalyze reactions, including it's own replication. Catalytic RNAs are called ribozymes and they are active today in every living cell. In fact one of the reactions at the core of biochemistry - translation - is performed by a ribozyme called the ribosome. I think the ribosome is the most important molecular complex on earth and everyone should know about it.
The thing about the ribosome is that it a complex of RNA and proteins - although the central reaction is catalyzed by RNA, the protein co-factors are essential. Many people working in origin of life fields assume that this situation characterizes the RNA world; RNA taking the central role in catalysis and reproduction, with increasingly complex peptides and proteins acting as co-factors. Eventually the proteins became complex enough to take over the bulk of catalysis, which is what we see today. Sort of like humans developing tools, then assembling them into factories and whole industries.
So I would encourage people to think of proteins and RNA as having co-evolved for a very long time. Perhaps right back to the first ancestors of the ribosome. Rather than a jump from one "world" to another, it has likely been a gradual transition.
This video is awesome. Brilliant the way you youtaped the molecules together.
Abiogenesis is such an important and fascinating topic. Thank you for this terrific video.
@Sal Spencer This argument makes no sense. Chemical reactions not generate computer programs, but take place in a completely natural environments.
@Sal Spencer The computer is a poor analogy but assuming that it somehow doesn't completely break down in 6 billion years, something may indeed happen. Cosmic rays do cause random bitflips in computers.
Over such large time scales it is not crazy to think that some self replicating structure may spontaneously arise:
-The memory will be full of random stuff due to the random bitflips accumulating.
-The program counter will move randomly over it (usually just advancing forward, ocassionaly jumping when it hits a jump instruction or when a bitflip happens in the program counter itself).
-So if any sequence of instructions that does make a copy of itself to other position and calls the copy exists anywhere in the memory (that can be written in surprisingly few instructions and can also happen in many different ways, infinite ways if you count superfluous instructions in between, not hard to happen at random), it will eventually run.
-Once you have a self replicating program, it will continue running but bit flips due to cosmic rays/radiation will continue happening, most of them will not be beneficial and that copy won't run and will likely be eventually overwritten by copies that do run.
-If some change makes a copy of the program more efficient, it will eventually dominate over the less efficient versions overwriting them in memory.
-That may not only mean removing the superfluous instructions, but adding ones that target competitors, that make the program more resilient by for example writing it to disk. That adapt the behavior depending on the behavior of other copies. That keep track of the beneficial adaptions and pass them to the next copies.
That indeed won't result in anything that looks like an operating system we are used to, but would look like quite similar to life.
There is a whole area in computer science devoted to genetic algorithms in which programs do learn to do stuff in a vaguely similar way. Of course not by filling the computer memory with random stuff, that is too inefficient and we want fast results. But it still validates the idea that random changes+self replication+environmental pressures is enough to rapidly advance towards fairly optimal solutions.
@Muzaffar Krylov The chemical reactions in your body are also happening totally mindlessly without any direction. You are following a circular argument that makes no sense.
@Sal Spencer I heard that statement long ago, I'm a computer science student and I know many ways a program could evolve from simple rules and time. It's not a good argument and it makes real computer scientists look bad.
Why is the layman always looking into science to confirm god's existence, why do they need that? Isn't enough to blindly believe it like the scriptures say?
@Muzaffar Krylov You say all these absolutes as if you’ve tested all possibilities. How arrogant of you to assume that a deity exists, and that it is your version out of the seemingly infinite versions. Science draws conclusions about the origin of our world and makes no claims about metaphysics. Whether a god exists or not, I’m sure they would want us to know as much about the universe as we can instead of drawing baseless conclusions, right?
I remember reading the little book "The Origin of Life" by Oparin early in highschool, found it completely fascinating, just as this video which is quite the update.
I still have the book. It was one of the first comprehensive Theories for Abiogenesis. Oparin's proposed made brilliant educated guesses based in what was known at the time (1924 I think). Brilliant Soviet science.
😂 exactly.
15:47 This metabolism is truly a fascinating bit of research! Way more convincing than a number of other research, in terms of possibilities!
Yup! I'd like to go out for a beer with a few of those people. Would make for some really interesting conversation. Finally got some people smart enough to shift away from this insane focus on reproduction. Reproduction might be something that came about (later?) for energy-conservation purposes, but I don't think reproduction or evolution are key criteria for classifying something as life. I can easily imagine a lifeform that is the only one of its kind, and immortal. It may even evolve, but doesn't need reproduction for that. Metabolism is a key criterion. Stuff like growth, response to stimuli, maintenance of homeostasis, adaptation to the environment (for one organism) could be seen as aspects of metabolism. Take, for instance, reptiles. They are cold-blooded, so in order to maintain homeostasis they have to bathe in the sun for heat, and if it's too cold, they hibernate. There's response to stimuli, maintenance of homeostasis, and adaptation right there. And it all has to do with intaking, consuming, and conserving energy. We can self-thermoregulate to a certain extent, but if your metabolism is slow (like, if you have hypothyroidism), that capacity is reduced. Growth is likewise trivially about energy. Meaning when you strip all these things down, they can be subsumed under metabolism.
What’s even crazier then the creating of life is how someone made a fully functioning computer in Minecraft using redstone. Both are miracles
Quite a good 20 minutes survey of what is known about life's origin. Very informative.
I can sum everything she said in one sentence.
We haven't a clue.
@@PlanetEarth3141 um, actually, we have a few clues, doomer.
@@PlanetEarth3141 wow, you're a genius? Can you give me the recipe for the stuff you smoke?😮
@@MrAdamo Don't come for planet earth like that pls, she's got a lot on her plate rn
@@Thomas-gk42 No. Neither can anyone make you smarter.
Sabine thank you for jump starting my brain to have a Wonderful Saturday..
Thank you Sabine enjoy listening to you teach science witty and interesting
Thank you so much. Brilliantly presented. So informative. So stimulating. Please do more.
Thanks Sabine for giving us real science without bla bla. xoxoxo
Coming from the "Big Think" interview. After watching that video I immediately searched for your name and subscribed to your channel. That's how much I liked your interview and I'm happy to have found another great science channel here on TH-cam. Thank you for your work Dr.
Welcome!
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
Thank you for sharing Sabine, always interesting and fun.
INCREDIBLE! Thanks for sharing. This is a topic I have long pondered.
This lady is really good. I admire her.
This is one of the most interesting and helpful video on this topic I have ever heard. Thanks.
i am into an abiogenesis a lot and this one is quite a piece of educational video, coming from a scientist from a different field 🤩
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
and my last comment. This was a wonderful clear introduction to a fascinating topic. Its one that I think is universally interesting to anyone who asks how we came to be. Thankyou Sabine!
Excellent video, Sabine! You did very well explaining this all. 😊👍🏼 Zircons are really fascinating, I think, and I lean more towards the RNA-World hypothesis, or the Metabolism-First hypothesis, as the best way to tease the answers out of the clues. 😊
I definitely agree with you moreso than with Anton Petrov on this specific subject on which you disagree. 😊
Thanks for all you do, Sabine!
❤️❤️❣️
Great presentation on a fascinating subject. I've been close to researchers on the origin of life, and what I understand is that they find how the elements of life are created, in a similar way in which transistors and resistors are created. But once you have a bunch of electronic components, you still need to know how they can be assembled to build a radio or a telly, for instance. One of the problems, I think, is they haven't gone deep enough into understanding the out of equilibrium reactions that lead to self-organisation. They can't understand how life originated in the Universe if they can't create life themselves, and THAT is the key to the problem.
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
Great presentation. A sequence of steps of increasing complexity. Now that is hard to replicate often. So life might be less common in the universe than we thought.
You are absolutely right. Why isn't this on the news?
Thank you for the content !
Excellent summary of this field. I like Jack Szostak's observation that a few decades ago the puzzle seemed almost insurmountable, but today a lot of basic questions have been given plausible answers (RNA hypothesis, for example). Lots of experiments have been done that show other molecules similar to RNA just don't polymerize as favorably as RNA.
Plausible answers aren't authentic answers.
The RNA hypothesis isn't plausible.
RNA needs to be kept at minus 80 degrees to prevent it from spoiling.
At room temperature, RNA breaks down as fast as milk. Within a hours it is rotten and useless.
@@sentientflower7891 Plausible answers aren't **confirmed** answers. But they're the first step in that direction!
RNA world might be the answer to the hypothesis of how the modern form of life evolved from a more primitive form. However, it fails in the life-origin hypothesis.
@@KalebPeters99 Medical science is packed with the skeletons of plausible answers later found to go nowhere. A plausible answer is NOT an answer.
Fascinating video, I've been always very interested in this topic, thanks!
Absolutely fascinating Sabine. Thank you
Thanks for the excellent video. As a chemist I agree with the idea that life can form spontaneously from a mix of the right molecules. Since we know that chemistry is the same everywhere in the universe (it is a product of physics after all), I also think that life will have the same basis everywhere. I think that silicon-based life is not a thing either, simply by seeing its chemistry (and molecular weight), it is not comparable in versatility to carbon.
Fascinating. Thank you, Sabine!
What a treat.
One of the smartest people in the world explaining just how life may have came to be.
How lucky are we?!
Yes, it's a pleasure 😊
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
That was Great. Thank you for all your work !
As a PBS eons avid watcher it was very interesting to see them resumed is such an accessible format
Thanks for introducing me to these interesting topics Sabine
Kauffman's 'At home in the Universe' is such a great book! I highly recommend it to anybody interested in the theoretical background of the research on the origins of life.
Sabine, Are you at all familiar with the alkaline vent theory? Now there is a theory more complete than any you just described in this video, so please check this out if you are interested in the Origin of Life. It's exciting and very much predicts lots of life on other planets. I won't try to describe it here but three proponents I've been reading are: Micheal Russell at JPL, Nick Lane at UCL, and Bill Martin at Dusseldorf U. Its testable, so we may not have to wait long.
Mr. Hasselhoff takes exception: Rock is eternal 🎉
Fantastic work!
For a moment I thought you referred to her as Mrs. Hasselhoff... That would've been hilarious.
@@akapilka Ewww
@@numbersix8919 Germans love David Hasselhoff. It's a known fact.
… which proves my theory: germans love David Hasselhoff!
Thank you for the video, and overall, good Job your series is very interesting.
Btw. I love your videos and your style of presentation Sabine. Keep up the great work.
I like the ideas presented, they seem more reasonable than pot luck. How a complex system feeds is secondary to the simple fact that it does.
The "how" question is rather important.
Your ending remark on a universe “evolving” to have us, if for nothing more to view its beauty, was stunning. Bravo!
It was stunning? It was stunningly stupid. Read the Bible before it's too late. Maranatha
@@gerardmoloney433 dude no one cares about the bible anymore. we see it for what it is, garbage.
@@gerardmoloney433
It was no more than a repetition of a much-heard atheist story, which she supposedly explains scientifically.
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
@@hyperduality2838 what about just asexual creatures.
I wouldnt be surprised if we find simple life where ever it can start, but considering the series of events that was required for us to come from that simple life tells me life like us is probably quite rare.
But rare in a universe this big is pretty relative, even if it was only one of us per one million galaxies, that would still be 200,000 forms of advanced life, but spread so thin the likelihood of us finding it or vis versa is probably highly unlikely.
@Sal Spencer false.
@Sal Spencer 'Life cannot occur without an original instruction set' According to who? Lots of things in our universe self assemble into incredible complexity from incredible simplicity, and do so because of nothing but the basic laws of the universe that determine how things interact, I dont see why life would be different.
@Sal Spencer Is God dead in your worldview? 🤦
The icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn probably will help to find out if life is unavoidable or rather rare.
@@salspencer91Only if one accepts your absolutist assumptions, which i do not. Go somewhere else to find your intelligent "god."
When I was doing my palaeontology undergrad at Macquarie we studied stromatolites. It's been a while and I'm now in medical science, not earth sciences, but from memory early earth stromatolites lived in highly anoxic conditions and produce oxygen as a waste product via photosynthesis. This oxygen combined with iron in ocean waters until no more of it could bind to iron and it began to oxygenate the atmosphere, which drastically changed the environment that stromatolites were living in and lead to their rapid population decline.
So my understanding is that early earth atmosphere had very little oxygen and a lot of iron and I thought that was fairly well established in the fossil and geological record. I was surprised to hear that it's been challenged on the basis of the formation of zircon crystals.
Also the interesting thing about life starting in hydrothermal vents is that, if true, it may mean that planets need tectonic activity for life to start putting a further limitation on the planets we consider capable of supporting life.
Please, do more videos on biology. It's fascinating!
15:36 made me laugh uncontrollably hahah
I think this is the first I've heard that RNA could form something like a cell wall naturally. I've always been curious how RNA or DNA got inside a cell wall.
Micells form spontaneously from lipids in water, and they tend to enguld RNA.
RNA is insanely fascinating and certainly played an enormous role in the origin of bacterial life. Not only is it an information storage molecule, some RNA molecules (ribozymes) have catalytic abilities, and others are part of protein synthesising machines (ribosomes) or play other roles in protein synthesis (transfer RNA).
It's no wonder that RNA is becoming an increasingly hot topic in the life sciences as well, given the boubdless potential for new RNA-based therapies.
Top down is dual to bottom up synthesizes RNA.
A is dual to T,
C is dual to G -- DNA bases.
Hydrophilic is dual to hydrophobic -- hydrogen bonding.
The double helix should be called the dual helix as the code of life is dual.
Yin is dual to yang.
Thesis (bacteria) is dual to anti-thesis (archaea) creates the converging thesis or synthesis (eukarya) -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic.
Clockwise (Krebs cycle, plants, trees) is dual to anti-clockwise (the reverse Krebs cycle, higher lifeforms, mammals).
Bi-stability implies duality.
Multi cellular life is synthesized from single cell life via the Hegelian dialectic -- the duality of the Krebs cycle.
Male (thesis) is dual to female (anti-thesis) synthesizes children or offspring.
The Hegelian dialectic explains why there are two dual sexes in nature.
"Always two there are" -- Yoda.
DNA is built from hydrogen bonds or water -- Duality.
@@tonyabrown7796
James Tour is an ignorant creationist who has been totally debunked by Professor Dave Farina with the help of the very most top notablers in Genetic Evolution. You're deluded.
@@tonyabrown7796 James Tour... the guy who's been decimated on the subject of abiogenesis by multiple scientists working in the field... 'should watch'... lol
Sabine is simply glorious - I even listen to the advertising at the end!!
Many Thanks! This is one or your more incredible and interesting video.
(And I saw most of them 😅)
Wow great video...confirming we have no idea how life originated!
Indeed, science has no clue only assumptions. Thank You Lord for creating this beautiful universe with the Earth, this wonderful place for us to dwell in. Thank You Lord for giving us life, the breath in our lungs, the wonderful capabilities of our bodies and brains, all praise to You and to Jezus Christ Your Son and through faith, our Lord and Saviour, and the Holy Spirit which You send down to us to dwell in us and help discern between right and wrong according to Your will for ever amen.
It confirms we have quite some ideas of how life could have originated. From cell level on it's a certainty the diversity of life on earth exists because of evolution.
@@kedrednael Can you prove that all life came from evolution of one miracle cell that was created? Whales, plants, insects, trees, birds, etc?
@@kedrednael actually no; no evidence has been provided for a universal common ancestry between all living organisms on Earth, not even between humans and the supposed common ancester with chimps or other apes. You are making a claim that not even the most knowledgeable scientists in the field of genetics or biology can truefully assert.
@@gsincs All evidence points towards a common ancestor:
- Fossil record shows species change over time. There are layers of rock in which currently living organisms are not found. The animals that are found seem to be changing quite gradually. Just look up bird or whale evolution, we have found a lot of interesting fossils of intermediate species which do not exist today anymore.
- (Useless) genetic mutations are passed along certain lineages and can be tracked.
- The way in which similar functioning organs work points toward the fact that they evolved in certain lineages and were passed down, with changes, to descendants. For example, life already split into different branches before eyes evolved for Cephalopods (squids etc) & vertebrates (mammals+birds+amphibians etc). Eyes evolved in both (and more than those 2) branches separately. In all those squids the retina is orientated in the sensible way, and they focus their eye by shortening/squishing their entire eye. In the other branch eyes evolved in such a way the wiring (axons) from the retinal neurons goes into the eye first, so these block light a slight little bit and it requires a hole in the retina for the wiring to pass back into the head into the brain, giving us a blind spot in each eye. And we focus by squishing only the lens of the eye.
From evolutionary point of view this makes total sense. The organ performs its function well enough and are dependent on the ancestors, but the genes and its components/ how it achieves the function are different between branches.
From a theological point of view it makes no sense. Religious people often point towards the eye as a perfectly designed organ which can't exist in another way and can't evolve step by step. But evidently that is false. We see intermediate steps of eyes in many organisms, and we see different ways in which eyes can exist. If God loves humans so much, and makes us in his image, why do humans have arguably worse eyes than some other animals? Why can our eyes suffer from retinal detachment so easy compared to the squids? From our lineage there are also examples of better eyes. For example, eagles can see sharper, some species can see polarization of light. If God is just making all life at once, why do these animals have organs that do the same thing, but they work in a different way depending on their apparent genetic lineage? If God wanted us to gaze upon its creation so much, why can we not even see all the colors/pigments that flowers have? Flowers and birds have ultraviolet pigments that are invisible to us, but visible to the birds.
- Evolution just works. All you need is: 1. Some stuff that determines properties and can copy itself. 2. The copies sometimes contain mutations. 3. The properties determine copy chances.
Evolution is not some crazy concept which is "just a theory". There is a whole field of effective machine learning with 'evolutionary algorithms' which apply those three steps and the results are things that we can not program ourselves.
And we are also applying evolution in basically all fields of biology: Crops, domesticated animals, anti-biotics, virus investigation.
But a common ancestor for plants and animals separately is harder to prove. All I can say on that part is, the scientist who spend their life work on analyzing the genetic code of organisms and other evidence conclude the evidence points toward a common ancestor for all multicellular life.
Second (I hope you're still with me).. It wouldn't be a miracle cell; evolution also works on things smaller than a cell if the three rules I said above apply to them. Like quite short, loose RNA strands for example.
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C Clarke.
Enters Optional Chronology : " Dear Arthur, now it's up to just ...one impossible option...cuz We are running not out of Time but of options available..."
Confucius say, if we are alone in the universe, at least we don’t have to share our snacks.
Only two options? What happened to the current fad, the "simulation" we inhabit, like the movie Truman Show? And if we are alone, does that mean we define god as a mental health bandaid so animals feel more than insignificant in an uncaring universe? How else can we explain cows laying in the shade half the day, vomiting food to rechew without committing suicide?
We are not alone but we are left alone. Way more scary.
While that quote seems almost obligatory under a video like this, so is this answer: Why would it be necessarily scary to be the only intelligent species?
At the very least, someone has to be first, in which case, yay, free real estate.
Excellent overview! Thank you Sabine! Do we have any new theories on the homochirality of life?
Great video. Love your sense of humour.
Excellent. Water is essential to life as we know it and "A new study suggests that many more planets in distant solar systems have large amounts of water than previously thought" -Citation: “Density, not radius, separates rocky and water-rich planets orbiting M dwarf stars.” R. Luque and E. Pallé, Science, Sept. 8, 2022.
Also there are apparently many moons that have large liquid water oceans, like several in our own solar system. This shows that previous ideas about habitable zones around stars may have been too pessimistic as there are ways to maintain large bodies of liquid water due to tidal forces or radioactivity that can exist far outside a so-called "habitable zone."
@@ruschein Yes. I am very much looking forward to explorations in the water of Enceladus and Europa.
Wonderful summary of the field of origins of life.
Sabine, you must be aware of the work of the German scientist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), who studied insect life with her daughters in Surinam and proved that spontaneous generation was bunk. I had the pleasure of handling originals of her beautiful illustrations in watercolor when I worked at a shop that dealt in antique documents. She was a pioneer of entomology.
In 1679, a year after the birth of her second daughter, Merian published Der Raupen wunderbarer Verwandlung (The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars), the result of almost two decades of observations, and a landmark publication.
Wow, I'm pleasing astonished to meet someone here, who knows about that. Curious, where you're from? In Germany her name is known primarily as a public geographic newspaper, that adopted her family name. Their roots are in Basel, Switzerland today. I know about her work because of my biology studies. A great scientist and artist. Yes, I think between her and Sabine, there are a lot of similarities. Just a few people know, how many great women have worked on the growth of clear understanding and education.
Even if the probability of organic molecules spontaneously producing autocatalytic reactions is high given the environment of the young Earth, is it necessarily fair to extrapolate that and say that life must be unavoidable in the universe ? Because even if the chemistry for life is pretty reliable on an early Earth-like planet, that doesn't mean that there will be a large number of planetary environments that match up with the early Earth
Fascinating. One of the issues which fascinates me is why there only seems to be one common root for all life on Earth. Why didn't similar processes occur at other times, leading to unrelated life forms?
I wonder if it is a zero sum game. Once one approach to life takes hold, it dominates making it difficult for other approaches to take hold.
That is a true and has concerned me too, there should be new forms of life emerging daily!!
Life replicates and consumes resources while doing so. The first forms would dominate then compete with each other -- not leaving behind much for new experiments.
@@audiodead7302 That's probably what happened. Or it could be we just don't notice other stuff, like Archaebacteria weren't discovered for a long time.
@@tomspencer1364 Classic 'first mover' advantage.
Always talented at making the profound less so. Thank you, Sabine.
Does she really make it less profound though? Or does she just make it more understandable? The more I understand this stuff, the more profound it seems.
I think this is a sincere compliment ..??
@@koho I think you’re right, but his comment could be perceived either way, based on the wording.
3:24 I like the thermodynamic definition: Lifeforms are systems that locally reduce entropy.
Ditto !!
She had me at "figure out why the main use for those thumbs is hitting the poop emoji on a smartphone". I'm such a huge fan, high intellect with a sense of humor.
I agree that this is likely an amazingly important piece of the puzzle. Thanks you for bringing it to my attention. I guess organic chemistry just isn’t sexy enough for the mainstream science news.
i am on record as saying that life might be extremely common, and pop up almost anywhere, the problem it has faced though is that the universe is better at killing things off than keeping them alive.
Are you saying that the drug cartels have an extra galactic presence?
Unfortunately, that does seem to be the case! Asteroid impacts, solar flares and high energy events like supernova explosions that sterilize large volumes of space are probably very common on time scales that are relevant to the survival of ecosystems of planets or large moons.
25 years ago I remember reading about a scientist / organic chemist that had a set of conjectures that was exploring much lower temperature chemical kinetics and formation of various "Building blocks" of "Life". The guy had these various test-tubes in deep freeze and also in the arctic conditions (if memory serves me right) that he would analyze every 25 years or so to see if new products and structures were formed from very slow reactions ? Problem being he doesn't live long enough to follow through on his own experiments.
I can't remember the guy's name / scientist - kind of a Linus Pauling type with tar like substances in many test tubes ? [ Remember a photo of him clutching a Styrofoam container with test-tubes with tar like substances inside each TT.].
Its a branch of chemistry / molecular pre-biology (low temperature ultra slow kinetics) that seemingly would not be easy to map out in practical terms.
Harry Nichols "exists on record" as anthropomorphizing motives into the entire universe, and neglecting to add the notion of time frames. A star's lifetime provides plenty of time for various births and extinctions of All Life on most planets with water and temps that allow the three states of water to coexist, the only mineral on Earth that has all three states of its matter coexisting. Where do you see proof of a lethal universe? I see the opposte; clouds of star formation everywhere.
@@ruscheinObviously not true, or we wouldn't exist. This planet's stability enabled life, and the subacuatic environments, especially deep ocean vents, even more stable.
Thank you for a great video!
Talking about life in universe - we are looking for molecular-based/biochemical life, but there also could be other forms, like eg electromagentic clusters or some stone-based formations, who live either too fast or too slow for us, and maybe the Universe if full of such kind of life, but be just can't observe them. I hope AI will help detecting such civilizations in near future.
Excellent and illuminating presentation. That the universe may be teeming with life is pause for thought for so many reasons.
Great summary of the current state of abiogenesis research. As you state this is a tough nut to crack.
As to the frequency of life in the universe, no one knows but it looks like earth has a number of favorable aspects: fairly stable sun, a magnetic field, a moon resulting in tidal forces, plate tectonics to recycle elements, and obviously an orbit that allows liquid water.
it appears the odds of those favourable aspects individually, that current science and technology can detect or guesstimate, are somewhere in the range of better than 1/1000, with some more likely than 1/100. Even if the odds of all those aspects combining for a planet are somewhere in the range of 1/100,000 to 1/1000,000,000, then if they are enough for life, there is a plethora of life in the universe. However, assuming the speed of light is a hard limit, then time and distance is a huge (insurmountable in our life times) obstacle to detecting it unless we get fantastically lucky.
That's just assuming life must be similar to the stuff on Earth, which as very sound, for now,
Best Wishes. ☮
Venus many of those conditions for some time, and Mars had many of them for a very short time. Life is likely more common on icy moons than it is on terrestrial planets, due to tidal forces with their host planets, liquid water sub-oceans, and thick, protective ice doing similar work to that of a magnetic field.
In fact, our sun may not be the best type of star for life, as K-type main-sequence stars may be slightly better.
Slightly surprised the comment section is open on this one, but very good review of the current state of the art!
Oh they're still getting their talking points to be faux outraged about today from NewsMax and Twitter, soon they'll go-to TH-cam and then they might see this and get triggered more. I'm sure Answers in Genius, Flashpoint, and Ken Ham will be picking at this soon enough.
Great video. Would be great if you linked the articles used for your reasearch in the descripitons so we could read it further
Amazing video on one of my favorite subjects. Very detailed and witty, brought up all the points I’ve researched + more!
But if life is an emergent property and is inevitable, I think we need to give Enrico Fermi a call…
I entertained the thought that life might be abundant for quite some time, but any complex life is extremely rare and intelligent life is even more extremely rare, even on this planet among one single species that thinks of itself as being the most intelligent.
A tiny amoeba is complex.
I really don't think that my dog thinks about how intelligent she is. She's quite good about enjoying the moment, whether she is on a walk or begging for treats.
Intelligent life is much more common than wisdom.
@@jayr526 nice thought. As I see, intelligence is not the decisive point. Dogs are very intelligent in finding strategies and solutions, like many species or AI. But, as you say, living in the momentum. But what makes humans others is the ability to anticipate the future in being self-aware and separate the self reflection from the outer world. To come to that might be a very rarely process
Metabolism first is so cool to me, the deep sea vent hypothesis specifically. The idea is that electron gradients between porous hydrothermal vent rock and seawater could have allowed for hydrogen to act as an electron donor in the reduction of carbon dioxide to formic acid and formyl groups, providing the raw material for the first organic structures. Even today there's bacteria which use inorganic hydrogen's redox potential to assimilate carbon with the Wood Ljungdahl pathway. It's very fun to read up on because there's a lot of contention about how and if carbon fixation in vent rocks could be achieved so the papers get a bit sassy lol
thanks, as always very nice contribution
I'm so glad this popped up in my feed, I never heard of you before today.
Was looking forward to Saturday for this video 😂❤