Welcome to the comment section. Please help cultivate thoughtful conversation here on the topic of the origin of life. All views are welcome, so long as they are presented respectfully to those with opposing views.
@itsasin1969 It would be hard to do a video on that because scientists really haven't figured much out about consciousness. For a good recent overview of where we are on that mystery, see Annaka Harris' book 'Conscious'.
I love how the animator actually tells us how he drew the images. I always thought that most the animators are just lazy and don't want t show the details. This right here is a dedicated man. He deserves a big fat raise.
Then have you read the Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: the Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere by Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz? It is quite "mindblowing" in it's detail and scope. Thoroughly recommended.
@Trying to make sense haha yeah or that a clay like doll can be brought to life and then another being made from a rib of said doll. Nothing imaginary about that. Totally logical.
Check out the game EteRNA. It's a game that let's you play with RNA and potentially help medicine. It's fun for everyone who likes to solve puzzles, so maybe your students would be interested!
Yeah, but this metabolism first theory is harder to understand because it is less obvious how evolutionary happens with this thing alone. It almost requires RNA along the ride.
There's a bit of a confusion regarding the topic of abiogenesis and how it is presented. The various "[insert blank]-first" hypotheses are often presented as strictly mutually exclusive, when only their most extreme forms are exclusive. In reality, they are probably all partially true. The real debate is about how big of a contribution each of these proposed processes had on the overall processes of abiogenesis. For example, we simply don't know how big of a role these sorts of primordial metabolisms played. The tar paradox may be only apparent paradox and the extra "junk" in the sludge doesn't hinder formation of life at all, no metabolism necessary. Alternatively, the tar paradox might be real and metabolism is necessary. Or it could be anything in between. We simply don't know yet.
To me, the Miller-Urey experiment doesn't really simulate an environment at all; just the ancient earth atmosphere. It might be missing certain environmental or climatic forces that could selectively concentrate building blocks of life. I was thinking of an experiment that combines the atmospheric simulation of the Miller-Urey experiment with minerals and tidal waves that emulates certain earth environments.
@@gelatinocyte6270 I'm pretty sure such experiments were done. Millwe-Urey experiment is so famous because it was the first experiment of this kind. Today is almost half a century later.
Of all the many theories of abiogenesis(the Lipid World, the RNA World, the Hydrothermal Vent Protocell theory, the hypercycles theory, etc), this is hands down the most plausible. I actually read the full paper by that German chemist, and it is an absolutely stunning work of brilliance. It is, however, a very gratting read. You need 4 years of university-level knowledge of organic chemistry to even begin understanding it. He goes on in exactly detail, step-by-step how all the necessary components form, and then lays it down brillianty how it all comes together, over a billion years, to form the first procaryotic cell ever, living in a volcanic lake and feeding off methane.
Taking a genetics class this semester and the molecular biology part is fascinating but very dense with information. This series is actually giving me a conceptual framework that has helped me anchor many new concepts as I relate them the ideas presented here in my mind.
*A giant step on the road of total understanding of abiogenesis. (from Protocells to DNA)* What is protocell? A protocell (or protobiont) is a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of lipids proposed as a stepping-stone toward the origin of life. A longer definition is supplied by several biology books: “The protocell includes two or more RNA replicases which are able to make copies of each other. Concurrent with RNA replication, the vesicle membrane grows through the addition of fatty acids from micelle collisions. This causes the surface area of the protocell to increase while the volume remains constant, resulting in the elongation and increased instability of the protocell membrane. The membrane eventually divides, forming two daughter protocells, with the RNA replicases randomly divided between them.” The protocell is very important as it relates to genetic material, which from the protocell gets transferred to living cells and is known as DNA. DNA evolves into RNA and then to functional proteins. This appears to be a paradox, because RNA is less stable form of DNA (it is sort of going backwards), however this confirms the RNA World hypothesis. (The RNA hypothesis deals with the pre-biotic world where there are RNA molecules present, which are precursor to life. RNA molecules are able to replicate themselves and are also capable of protein synthesis. Also co-existed with ribozymes, which are catalytic RNA. ) Because DNA goes back to a less stable and less advanced form or a simpler version of itself (RNA) then goes from there to proteins, we can safely conclude the RNA was the first genetic material on earth. Later (perhaps much later) DNA has evolved from this RNA. DNA is a more advanced form of RNA because DNA is double stranded (RNA is single stranded), which is more stable. So this is the explanation of how functional protein is made, by DNA returning (seemingly backwards) to RNA; to pick up the first genetic material. At this stage the RNA acts as a “middle man”. This is the beginning of the actual living cells.
Those who enjoyed this animation might like to read Spontaneous Order and the Origin of Life, a popular science version of the profound Smith/Morowitz text on the subject.
The process of HOW inorganic compounds found a way to turn into Organic biological compounds is utterly mind boggling. Yet we know it HAS occurred because Here we are as well as all the other Organic compounds we see all over our planet.
6:41 "evolutionary logic tells us that widely shared traits are probably the oldest" This makes some sense for genetic traits because of the way genes are copied and the odds of convergent evolution producing two very similar sequences of genetic material are astronomically low, however; I don't think this logic holds for many metabolic cycles. As I understand it, most processes in a cell occur stochastically. For instance: enzymes wait for their reactants to bump into them before performing their function. It helps that inter-molecular forces are so strong at the scale of biochemistry (things tend to snap together like magnets when they fit), but the rate of the reaction can be controlled by increasing thermal energy (the rate of molecules bumping into each-other) and the concentrations of the relevant molecules (e.g. the reactants and enzymes). This means that in prokaryotic cells, if you want to up-regulate a process by increasing the concentration of reactants or whatever, you necessarily down-regulate other processes because increasing the concentration of X necessarily dilutes the concentration of Y. You can't encapsulate processes within their own vesicle and regulate concentrations independently like in eukaryotes. That means that evolution will be constantly in a tug of war with itself because if you want to get better at one function, it'll almost always come at the expense of others. If an organism evolved near a hydro-thermal vent and developed metabolic paths to suite that environment, then started developing other metabolic paths that led it to stray away from the hydro-thermal vent, the offspring that continue to develop the secondary metabolic pathway would probably do so at the expense of metabolic paths that allowed it to live near hydro-thermal vents. Still, there are some metabolic paths that would remain generally beneficial, like synthesizing amino acids, nucleic acids, and fatty acids.
I can’t believe this guy! He doesn’t even hide the fact that he’s a NASA shill! It’s Stated Clearly right there at the beginning of the video! But seriously, great video John. Thanks for your great work. 🙌👏🙌👏🙌👏
It's obviously a joke but wouldnt the fact that its show clearly at the begining mean he isn't a shill because by definition shills hide the source of their revenue.
I suspect that the more we learn about simpler, less sophisticated forms of prokaryotic life, the more we'll be able to understand both the environment in which early life flourished & perhaps clarify which sequence of evolutionary stages would result in the modern Eukaryotic metabolism.
Can you imagine if they were successful? It would be perhaps the most significant breakthroughs of all time. Where would it leave religious creation stories?
Religion is also self - replicating information that uses its hosts to replicate in other hosts. It also mutates, as the replication is never perfect, and also evolves, competes with other strains, finds environmental niches and so on. It's not even entirely abiotic, as it uses living hosts' nervous cells to perform all those functions. In a way, it's somewhere on the boundary of life and inanimate stuff, inevitably drawing parallels with viruses. Just built from memes instead of genes.
Well, religious creation stories are surely out of the door already, aren't they? I mean, there's no way it actually happened like any of the religions say it did, considering evolution, big bang, a bunch of other galaxies existing and basically all we know about the world, really. Not a single smart religious person would actually believe in the religious creation stories as more than just a metaphor.
Thanks for making this video! I hadn’t even heard of this hypothesis before and it was really cool to learn about :) So the idea of metabolism-first is that life didn’t need to start as a self-replicating molecule, and could’ve instead started even simpler, as a molecule helping to support the conditions that caused it to come into existence in the first place? That’s very interesting. That implies that we might not be descended from that first molecule, and instead from a molecule that that class of molecules indirectly helped support the creation of. That’s really interesting!
Serious question: Would this suggest then that something like what we see in the TCA is a common evolutionary route for physical chemistry to take within such early planetary environments as those we've predicted? (i.e. sorta analogous to water repeatedly taking the "easiest" routes down a mountain, rather than the "hardest") If so, would this then suggest that, hypothetically speaking, currently-undiscovered extraterrestrial life could likely have developed something similar to our 4-base nucleotide structure?
If extraterrestrial life is carbon-based like us, there is a high chance we would be metabolically (and this means physiologically and anatomically very similar). If there is indeed a "minimal metabolism", then there is no reason to believe that it'd evolved very differently than ours. We can even expect some form of convergent evolution in multicellualr organisms as they would have both a similar starting point and a relatively similar environment. The real alien life forms, as in "unrecognizable" as life or truly philosophically alien, will be non-carbon-based life (e.g. silicon, tungsten, plasma .. etc) as their starting point and their environment will be extremely different
Now wouldn't that be a neat trick, correctly predicting what xenobiology must be like, before you find any. But no, I don't think you can squeeze a prediction of RNA or DNA out of metabolism first hypothesis, rather that's what RNA first hypothesis would predict I think. At best you can conclude from metabolism first that there must be some common metabolic pathway all life first used to power itself.
@@hosoiarchives4858 Of course it's possible. Even in today's world with so much complex life, sub-living organic molecules, compounds and mobile genetic elements, such as viruses, viroids, transposons and plastids, still exist alngside cellular organisms, not to mention prions, rogue proteins. The constituent monomer compounds of life self-assemble naturally in a variety of environments, including on asteroids, which we know from meteorites. Even short chains (oligomers) of RNA and amino acids (peptides) arise spontaneously. That, over hundreds of millions of years, with trillions of reactions per second under various concentrated conditions, these oligomers would polymerize into stable nucleic acids and proteins (polypeptides) is highly likely. Many abiotic catalysts (enzymes) to facilitate polymerization (formation of long chains) exist, and, as noted, Fairly short RNA sequences are capable of both enzymatic and information storage. Same goes for remarkably short peptides. The smallest biologically active protein known today contains only 20 amino acids, found in gila monster saliva. Even shorter functional peptides exist.
Very well done intro to a subject with a complicated history that seem to only lately(within the last 10-15 years) have garnered serious attention in the origin of life research community.
Loved the video, why couldn't there be 'extinct' metabolic reactions which helped give rise to the ones we see today? Why do we think we would be likely to see those fossils at all?
@Linda Lo it’s more like: macromolecules are made when amino acids combine, proteins are made, nuclei acids make RNA/DNA, phospholipids are formed, making membranes, inside of which reactions continued. Watch Stated Clearly’s other videos to get more details about how life likely originated, such as the RNA hypothesis, the video about Abiogenesis, the video about how membranes form without a cell being present, the video about DNA, and more
What you need to establish is this: what is the most basic molecule you can create that had the ability to “attract/grab” atoms from the environment, duplicate itself and then breakaway to start the cycle all over again. Are there any simulations running on super computers that could figure this out? You would simply establish a whole host of different molecules and atoms and start from scratch rather than providing a “primordial soup” from which to borrow from because doing so means you have to make too many assumptions about what was and wasn’t available at the time in that location.
Hi I strongly disagree with the content. Most of the effort goes to only cartoon illustrations. It has never been observed that life started spontaneously from non-life. If (huge if) we can somehow make life from non-life that would only prove it takes intelligence to make life. I was taught evolution in school, but as I grew older I realized that the points used to support that this world is not designed are plain lies only in the imagination. Here are some questions that I hope will make people think 1) What evolved first the blood or veins? 2) What evolved first the bones tendons or mussels? 3) What evolved first the skin or inner organs? 4) If we have rock layers of different ages, where does fresh young rock come from? (perhaps the new moon?) 5) If life started only once in very specific conditions are we are all inbred cannibals, or if life started more than once what stopped it from happening? 6) Why did some life forms decide to work together and others to kill each other? 7) How many of the questions did you answer using only your imagination with absolutely zero practical evidence in real life?
@@trisapient Yes but we are not inbred cannibals nor related to monkeys. If evolution is true all life is inbred and everything that eats is a cannibal (single common ancestor). There is no evidence of any life coming from nonlife by itself even once.
@@trisapient If all life shares a common ancestor, all life is inbred and everything that eats is a cambial. If all life does not share a common ancestor, the "evolution tree of life" is a lie. Take your pick.
@@alrichs8146 1) Blood evolved first, early organisms had coeloms filled with blood like nourishing fluid which was recycled without proper 'plumbing' so to speak 2) Muscles evolved first which is evident when you see invertebrates like Cephalopods, arthropods all have Muscles without bone, bones evolved from cartilage in vertebrates/chordates and tendons are just fibrous part of muscle that attaches to a structure. 3) Depending on your definition skin evolved first but at that time it also did the functions of inner organs like in case of sponges, it's only later that endoderm/inner germ layer begins to differentiate into inner organs and division of labor occurs 4) Clearly you haven't heard of recycling of earth's crust. New rock is formed from volcanic activity/ tectonic activity I.e igneous rock and also from weathering of old rocks I.e sedimentary rocks. Crust is constantly destroyed and created with the movement of Tectonic plates, inner older rocks get melted to form magma when crust is pushed under into mantle and then come out as lava due to eruptions and volcanic activity forming new rock between tectonic plates. Layers are created from sediments which harden into rock under pressure I.e metamorphic rock. 5)??? No not the case as anybody beyond your 5th cousin could be considered a genetic stranger, it's like asking if tea is a soup, you are reaching here, this is a stretch and any more of it you will receive an Olympic medal for gymnastics. 6) Well you'll be surprised to hear animals help each other to kill each other (wolf pack) helping and killing are not mutually exclusive. No one just 'decided', you phrased the question as if it was a moral decision. Life will try to fill all niches it can, there are hundreds of parasites that have entire life cycles dedicated to exclusivly live inside human eyeball, brain, flesh and genitals. No organism just woke up one day to make a conscious moral choice between helping or killing, any action that increases capability of reproducing would just be more common in the next generation. 7) You probably aren't asking for a genuine answer here.
The problem with any theory of abiogenesis is that whatever mechanism one chooses as the initial essential building blocks of life is that adding another essential component makes the mechanism spectacularly less likely as the product of their probabilities. By the time one has assembled a fully self-replicating simple entity, this probability has reached truly staggering improbability, with some authors estimating on the order of 1 out of 10 to the 40th power. Anyone giving even a casual glance at your excellent chart of intracellular metabolism will get the point. The cell will not function correctly unless all this stuff is present and working. Small components of these metabolic processes may occur spontaneously in the proper “warm little pond”, but it would require an amazing pond (like one the size of the universe with all the time since the Big Bang) for an entire cell to form by chance.
In one respect you are correct. No one can know the precise probability of abiogenesis. OK, grant that this “spontaneous metabolism” suggested in this video may occur. Grant also that RNA bases may attach to sugars on certain clay substrates in certain little ponds. Grant that certain amino acids may form when one passes a current through a soup of organic molecules in a solution. Grant that lipids self assemble into a bilayer in the proper solution. However, get me from there to the simplest protein, or RNA that actually self replicates, and you face staggering odds. Then get from there to a single cell. Spread it out over time. There hasn’t been enough time. Because we can’t calculate the odds precisely does not mean they are not stupendous.
@rent a shill: _"we are here. odds of life happening is irrelavant because it happened."_ There's a *HUGE* fallacy in that statement. You're _assuming_ that life formed by naturalistic materialistic chance processes. But it could _not_ have for the very reason you dismiss. *David Ferry* is right. *rent a shill:* _"note that saying 'magic did it' was never a correct answer in human history"_ You're conflating two separate steps. First, use math and science to conclude that origin of life by naturalistic materialistic processes is absolutely unarguably *impossible* in less than a trillion trillion trillion years. Second, consider what intelligent agent designed life. That's neither science nor magic. But you _don't like_ this, so you conclude it's the wrong answer. Your rejection isn't science either.
@@KenJackson_US Yes, let's talk about what intelligent agent. Why is your intelligent agent so--dumb? Mine is smart enough to have conceived this at the molecular level in such a way as to make life inevitable everywhere it can be supported. Did yours mold us from clay? Because if yours did, my agent is clearly superior to yours.
@@VulcanLogic: _"..., my agent is clearly superior to yours."_ Your agent? The living Lord God made both of us. Your _"agent"_ only lives in the heads of people created by the God and never created anything. Do you know anything about how life works at the molecular level? Do you know what a protein is? How it's encoded in DNA and synthesized by enzymes that were themselves also synthesized from code in DNA?
I can't believe it took me a week to realize this was here. This is the only channel for which I have the alarm bell on! I've never even come close to being tempted to want that on before. I'm going to go searching for a patreon for you and if you don't have one, make one because I'll subscribe.
Sometimes I wonder if the amount of energy put into sustained heavy agitation of a mixing process doesn't get factored into the potential chemical mixing to allow for abiogenesis. Look at what happens with waves hitting coastal rocks, waterfalls, or steam jets around volcanic or geothermal activity. A lot of turbulent churn that can erode faces away exposing new material, and do things like aeration that would permeate some oily film, and rapidly change conditions between icy cold and scalding hot. Just allowing something to bubble in a lab with the only input being modest heat and a magnetic stirrer may not be enough in terms of dynamic input into a chemical process. I wonder if anyone has tried a more "crazy" lab setup while attempting to figure this out?
Yeah. I was imagining a variation of the Miller-Urey experiment that *also* simulate those environments. Maybe there's also a natural process that filters out the junk from bioactive compounds that we didn't account for, right? The water in that old experiment was stagnant so of course tar would build up, right?
I'd like to see a deep dive into photosynthesis! Also, the reason life (in general) chose the 22 amino acids from which to produce all the thousands of proteins. Love the summaries and animations!!
My first reply was deleted for some reason, here's a suggestion though th-cam.com/video/jlO8NiPbgrk/w-d-xo.html Edit: now that this one works, I'll just recreate my first reply: _How about this: [same link as above]_ _It's an animation of Photosystem II (”first step” of photosynthesis) down to its atoms_
One of my favorite books that tackles this topic is Life Ascending by Nick Lane. A little bit of understanding of the basics of cellular biology and chemistry are required but it is ultimately written for laypeople like me.
Nice video, loved the animation. I wrote an essay on the topic a few months ago and really dug through the literature. Maybe you could consider doing a long video on it because there really is so much stuff out there. For anyone interested, look into the work of Bill Martin and Nick Lane, great place to start in my opinion, but after all most stuff on the origin of life is opinion :)
Hi Jon, I used to have a poster on my wall of all the chemical pathways of life when I studied zoology many years ago. Your chart looks even more complex, where have you taken it from?
Polyphosphate and the Origin of Life The principal problem with nearly all concepts of the origin of life is the formation of polymers such as nucleic acids, polysaccharides, and polypeptides. Chemical thermodynamics states that the equilibrium in all of three of these classes of compounds is in favor of DEPOLYMERIZATION. Left alone in water, all three spontaneously hydrolyze into monomers. This is a serious, perhaps fatal, problem in most theories of abiogenesis. The solution to this problem has recently been published: Polyphosphate. There are two critical facts of phosphate chemistry involved here: 1. monophosphate ion in solution is polymerized into polyphosphate by ultraviolet light. 2. polyphosphate reacts with monomers such as amino acids, monosaccharides, and nucleotides to drive condensation reaction creating polymers, with the polyphosphate being converted back into monophosphate. In the primitive oceans of Old Earth, there were many simple organic compounds produced either from UV irradiation in the ocean, or from UV irradiation in space in comets. Many of these compounds are driven to polymerize by polyphosphate which is constantly generated by UV irradiation. Other simple organic compounds such as citrate kept calcium in solution and prevented the precipitation of calcium phosphate hydrate (apatite). The strongest evidence that this mechanism is indeed correct is the fact that organic polyphosphates such as ATP are STILL the energy currency and primary drivers of life even today. What is ATP other than a polyphosphate (triphosphate) with an organic "handle" which permits the cell to transport the molecule to the point where it is needed.
1:31 The law of evolution has 3 parts, you left out one. Heritability + Variation + Differential Reproductive Success = Evolution or simply Heritability + Variation + Selection = Evolution
Selection often happens automatically. So long as there are finite resources, then some patterns will be able to take over a larger share of those. But yes, it does need to be mentioned, since without selection your variety of forms are just "distinctions without a difference".
I think that googling what's written on the bottom left corner at that time of the video will find it for you. Alternatively, you could check the description and follow the link about "a full list of links to scientific papers and articles related to this animation".
Reproduction : th-cam.com/video/ergfPuZz9-0/w-d-xo.html Clustering : www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39558-8 Brain : there are many examples of living animals with rudimentary brain, i'm not sure what the "leap" is here. Conscience : th-cam.com/video/ergfPuZz9-0/w-d-xo.html (same video as reproduction)
@@PaulNewfield-PasadenaCAU-wb4xg No, they prove that life CAN be created. And depending on the method they use, they can also prove that it can form naturally too.
not today no. but couple billion years ago there were simplest cell you see today is a product of 3+ billion years of evolution. so ofcourse its not simple today
@@roberttormey4312 which means that life arisen earlier than 3.8 billion years. like 4.3 can you name some of those plenty of cells that are as complex as today cells?
@@KenJackson_US All your comment does it show your ignorance on the topic of abiogenesis. genuine question; Have you actually read anything about it at all? Had you done the slightest bit of research instead of regurgitating the bullshit spoon fed to you. you would actually see that *NO ONE* is proposing that polypeptides spontaneously arose in the open ocean. it's literally the shittiest strawman argument ever.
You're not thinking, @@deathbyseatoast8854. Regardless of whether the first proteins formed in the open ocean or a billion years later, if life formed from non-life, then you *HAVE TO* account for the formation of proteins (or more to the point, the formation of protein encoded genes). So asking _"how many permutations are possible for a chain of 100 amino acids?"_ as I did, is *extremely* relevant. The fact that people with faith in abiogenesis run away from it hurling insults, as you did, is telling.
Can you (a _"mathematician")_ confirm that there are 20^100 or about 10^130 (ten to the 130 power) permutations of a chain of 100 amino acids, @@deathbyseatoast8854?
Darwin never "clearly showed" anything. He didn't even know if evolution was true, himself. To be sure, no one has ever shown any process of evolution ever taking place. It is only believed by those who don't want to have cause of everything being contingent on a Creator of every physical thing even though that is what all of the scientific evidence shows.
Haha. You complain of a alleged lack of evidence from biology, and then in the next sentence appeal to a magic invisible supernatural creator that no one can observe. Irony so think you can cut it with a chainsaw.
@@hammalammadingdong6244 What speciation is there when none of the supposed common ancestors even exist? You can’t get written instructions that aren’t there.
So much love to you! I have been watching your shorts recently and it has led me to your long form materials. I curate my feed to be nerd friendly- thank you for contributing!
There was a lot of things in this video I couldn't understand. Mostly just specifics and different terms. The pictures and animations allowed me to understand the concept of what you were saying though. It was a great video.
Absolute (Necessary) Criteria for Life (as defined by Tibor Gánti): 1. Inherent Unity: Life is inherently a single, unified system. This unity is essential for the functioning and survival of the organism. 2. Metabolism: As in the original list, this is the process by which a living organism sustains itself, growing and reproducing by taking in energy from its surroundings and using it in a series of controlled chemical reactions. 3. Inherent Stability (Homeostasis): Life has the ability to maintain a stable internal environment, even when external conditions change significantly. This is demonstrated in examples like dormant seeds or frozen insects that can survive in an inactive state for extended periods. 4. Information Subsystem: Living organisms must have a system for storing the genetic instructions needed to guide their functions and reproduction. This information is typically stored in DNA. 5. Regulation and Control: Living organisms have the ability to control and regulate their own processes, both internally (such as metabolic processes) and in response to their environment. Potential Criteria for Life (as defined by Tibor Gánti): 6. Growth and Reproduction: Living organisms have the potential to grow (increase in size and complexity) and reproduce (create new organisms like themselves). 7. Inherited Changes (Evolution): Living organisms can undergo changes that can be passed on to subsequent generations. This allows for evolution and adaptation over time. 8. Mortality: While somewhat philosophical, this criterion recognizes that all known life forms have a finite lifespan.
Wow!! I just discovered this channel - absolutely amazing how you break this topic down and distill very complex concepts into understandable media. You are a great educator. The animations and graphics are so fantastic!!! Thank you!!!
Abiogenesis is responsible for creation of any Living creature such as animal and plant and Life is diversity by Evolution that's created many Life-form
Well done. This is the best intro to metabolism first that I've seen. I would have liked to see a little bit more about the details of some of the biochemical processes such as volcanic mineral catalysis chemical reaction that would have made the video longer oh, and perhaps misleading with respect to the diversity of hypotheses.
Tibor Gánti's definition of life includes a theoretical model called the chemoton, which he introduced as an abstract model for the fundamental unit of life. Here's a summary of the chemoton model and its implications: Basics of the Chemoton Model: The chemoton is a protocell that grows by metabolism, reproduces by biological fission, and has at least rudimentary genetic variation. It contains three subsystems: an autocatalytic network for metabolism, a lipid bilayer for structural organization, and a replicating machinery for information. The metabolism of the chemoton is in an autonomous chemical cycle and does not depend on enzymes. It is believed to be the original ancestor of all organisms1. Structure and Function of the Chemoton: Autocatalysis in the chemoton produces its own structures and functions. The model includes a molecule that is spontaneously produced and is incorporated into the structure. This molecule is amphipathic like membrane lipids, but it is highly dynamic, leaving small gaps that close and open frequently. This unstable structure is important for new amphipathic molecules to be added, so that a membrane is subsequently formed. This will become a microsphere. Due to metabolic reaction, osmotic pressure will build up inside the microsphere, generating a force for invaginating the membrane, and ultimately division. Continuous reactions will also invariably produce variable polymers that can be inherited by daughter cells. In the advanced version of the chemoton, the hereditary information will act as a genetic material, something like a ribozyme of the RNA world1. Chemoton and the Origin of Life: The chemoton model is used in studying the chemical origin of life. The chemoton can be considered as a primitive or minimal cellular life, as it satisfies the definition of what a cell is: a unit of biological activity enclosed by a membrane and capable of self-reproduction. A synthesized chemoton can survive in a wide range of chemical solutions, form materials for its internal components, metabolize its chemicals, and grow in size and multiply itself. As an autocatalytic but non-genetic entity, it predates the enzyme-dependent precursors of life. However, being capable of self-replication and producing variant metabolites, it possibly could be an entity with the first biological evolution, therefore, the origin of the unit of Darwinian selection1. Chemoton and Artificial Life: The chemoton model has laid the foundation for some aspects of artificial life, particularly in software development and experimentation in the investigation of artificial life. The chemoton simplifies the otherwise complex biochemical and molecular functions of living cells. Since the chemoton is a system consisting of a large but fixed number of interacting molecular species, it can effectively be implemented in a process algebra-based computer language1. Comparison with Other Theories of Life: The chemoton is one of several theories of life, including the hypercycle of Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster, the (M,R) systems of Robert Rosen, autopoiesis (or self-building) of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, and the autocatalytic sets of Stuart Kauffman. All of these theories, including the chemoton, found their original inspiration in Erwin Schrödinger's book "What is Life?"
Wow nice thanks for explaining, this is definitely a very reasonable and convincing theory of life The animation at 5:53 really made it all come together for me in a way I could understand What I was confused about is what is the "tar paradox"? That was mentioned around the end of the video but I didn't pick up on what that was if you said it earlier in the video
I have heard doubts about the RNA world hypothesis for long, and I wondered what other explanations have people come up with. It's quite a shame that I, a biochemistry major, was not aware of this... Anyways, nice job!
Thank you for these incredible videos, I really learn so much from you. Please do keep them coming. As someone who's in the CS field actively researching AI and Machine Learning I strongly believe that the insights we unearth from studying Biological systems could one day help us simulate true intelligence.
@@Basieeee can you explain how a naturally occurring amino acid can be synthesized into a protein without a synthesizing engine called a cell. I’ll wait here
By logic, enclosed spaces are separated systems, similarly to an ecosystem or an organism. Thinking about it like this, makes it easier to understand how these reactions are cyclical and seem "fine--tuned". They had time, they may have had a specific place and they had the right tools to make all of this happen.
Is computational chemistry being or has being used to elucidate the problem of the origin of life?. Anyone knows anything about it, computational methods/approaches?.
Welcome to the comment section. Please help cultivate thoughtful conversation here on the topic of the origin of life. All views are welcome, so long as they are presented respectfully to those with opposing views.
Please can you talk about radiation
@itsasin1969 It would be hard to do a video on that because scientists really haven't figured much out about consciousness. For a good recent overview of where we are on that mystery, see Annaka Harris' book 'Conscious'.
@@michealmotor Are you wanting to learn what radiation is or how it effects our bodies?
Stated Clearly damn new subject for me to study thanks🙄👍
@itsasin1969 th-cam.com/video/H6u0VBqNBQ8/w-d-xo.html Kurzgesagt video is worth watching
I love how the animator actually tells us how he drew the images. I always thought that most the animators are just lazy and don't want t show the details. This right here is a dedicated man. He deserves a big fat raise.
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As a biochemist who has always been interested in the origins of life and prebiotic chemistry. I absolutely love this series!
Then have you read the Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: the Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere by Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz? It is quite "mindblowing" in it's detail and scope. Thoroughly recommended.
@Trying to make sense haha yeah or that a clay like doll can be brought to life and then another being made from a rib of said doll. Nothing imaginary about that. Totally logical.
Abiogenesis of life is not possible
@@hosoiarchives4858 Correct - matter and energy cannot create life.
@@Programm4r You are right about that
As a nurse, i found your videos so useful. You take us to a basic level of learning which is so important if we want to know how things work.
I'm mesmerized by how human beings ever figured all of this stuff out ... it is awe inspiring. Fantastic video.
Me too.
Commenting for the youtube algorithm cus I like your stuff.
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Engage
Sadly, i dont think comments have anything to do with the algorithm because videos with comments turned off still get sent to feeds frequently.
But definitely give a thumbs up and subscribe! :)
I teach Biology and have to cover the RNA world hypothesis. I found this interesting and will be sharing with my students.
Check out the game EteRNA. It's a game that let's you play with RNA and potentially help medicine. It's fun for everyone who likes to solve puzzles, so maybe your students would be interested!
Yeah, but this metabolism first theory is harder to understand because it is less obvious how evolutionary happens with this thing alone. It almost requires RNA along the ride.
This generation doesn't realize how lucky it is to have this kind of material accessible online.
This generation doesn't realize how lucky it is to have metabolism.
@@davidgustavsson4000 yes, I don't know how people lived before it was invented.
@@davidgustavsson4000 Back in my day we didn't have this newfangled metabolism. We broke our food apart with our bare hands.
I do and I feel so alone in this
Ever since humans started progressing so rapidly no generation could fully comprehend the world there ancestors green up in
There's a bit of a confusion regarding the topic of abiogenesis and how it is presented. The various "[insert blank]-first" hypotheses are often presented as strictly mutually exclusive, when only their most extreme forms are exclusive. In reality, they are probably all partially true. The real debate is about how big of a contribution each of these proposed processes had on the overall processes of abiogenesis.
For example, we simply don't know how big of a role these sorts of primordial metabolisms played. The tar paradox may be only apparent paradox and the extra "junk" in the sludge doesn't hinder formation of life at all, no metabolism necessary. Alternatively, the tar paradox might be real and metabolism is necessary. Or it could be anything in between. We simply don't know yet.
Which is why these are hypotheses to be tested and reiterated on. They're trying to figure it out and this is the best way how.
To me, the Miller-Urey experiment doesn't really simulate an environment at all; just the ancient earth atmosphere. It might be missing certain environmental or climatic forces that could selectively concentrate building blocks of life. I was thinking of an experiment that combines the atmospheric simulation of the Miller-Urey experiment with minerals and tidal waves that emulates certain earth environments.
@@gelatinocyte6270 I'm pretty sure such experiments were done. Millwe-Urey experiment is so famous because it was the first experiment of this kind. Today is almost half a century later.
@@KohuGaly Um, 1952 is almost three quarters, not half.
@@alanthompson8515 wow... time flies...
Of all the many theories of abiogenesis(the Lipid World, the RNA World, the Hydrothermal Vent Protocell theory, the hypercycles theory, etc), this is hands down the most plausible. I actually read the full paper by that German chemist, and it is an absolutely stunning work of brilliance. It is, however, a very gratting read. You need 4 years of university-level knowledge of organic chemistry to even begin understanding it. He goes on in exactly detail, step-by-step how all the necessary components form, and then lays it down brillianty how it all comes together, over a billion years, to form the first procaryotic cell ever, living in a volcanic lake and feeding off methane.
Which paper?
Taking a genetics class this semester and the molecular biology part is fascinating but very dense with information. This series is actually giving me a conceptual framework that has helped me anchor many new concepts as I relate them the ideas presented here in my mind.
Thanks Jon The video is informative and Great, you did a great Job illustrating the subject..♥️♥️♥️
*A giant step on the road of total understanding of abiogenesis. (from Protocells to DNA)*
What is protocell? A protocell (or protobiont) is a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of lipids proposed as a stepping-stone toward the origin of life. A longer definition is supplied by several biology books:
“The protocell includes two or more RNA replicases which are able to make copies of each other. Concurrent with RNA replication, the vesicle membrane grows through the addition of fatty acids from micelle collisions. This causes the surface area of the protocell to increase while the volume remains constant, resulting in the elongation and increased instability of the protocell membrane. The membrane eventually divides, forming two daughter protocells, with the RNA replicases randomly divided between them.”
The protocell is very important as it relates to genetic material, which from the protocell gets transferred to living cells and is known as DNA. DNA evolves into RNA and then to functional proteins. This appears to be a paradox, because RNA is less stable form of DNA (it is sort of going backwards), however this confirms the RNA World hypothesis. (The RNA hypothesis deals with the pre-biotic world where there are RNA molecules present, which are precursor to life. RNA molecules are able to replicate themselves and are also capable of protein synthesis. Also co-existed with ribozymes, which are catalytic RNA. ) Because DNA goes back to a less stable and less advanced form or a simpler version of itself (RNA) then goes from there to proteins, we can safely conclude the RNA was the first genetic material on earth.
Later (perhaps much later) DNA has evolved from this RNA. DNA is a more advanced form of RNA because DNA is double stranded (RNA is single stranded), which is more stable. So this is the explanation of how functional protein is made, by DNA returning (seemingly backwards) to RNA; to pick up the first genetic material. At this stage the RNA acts as a “middle man”. This is the beginning of the actual living cells.
Watching again after a couple of years and still finding as stunning as the first time I watched it. An amazing job.
Those who enjoyed this animation might like to read Spontaneous Order and the Origin of Life, a popular science version of the profound Smith/Morowitz text on the subject.
The process of HOW inorganic compounds found a way to turn into Organic biological compounds is utterly mind boggling. Yet we know it HAS occurred because Here we are as well as all the other Organic compounds we see all over our planet.
This idea is completely new to me, a very interesting proposal for expanding the (over dramatic) crucible of life.
6:41 "evolutionary logic tells us that widely shared traits are probably the oldest"
This makes some sense for genetic traits because of the way genes are copied and the odds of convergent evolution producing two very similar sequences of genetic material are astronomically low, however; I don't think this logic holds for many metabolic cycles.
As I understand it, most processes in a cell occur stochastically. For instance: enzymes wait for their reactants to bump into them before performing their function. It helps that inter-molecular forces are so strong at the scale of biochemistry (things tend to snap together like magnets when they fit), but the rate of the reaction can be controlled by increasing thermal energy (the rate of molecules bumping into each-other) and the concentrations of the relevant molecules (e.g. the reactants and enzymes). This means that in prokaryotic cells, if you want to up-regulate a process by increasing the concentration of reactants or whatever, you necessarily down-regulate other processes because increasing the concentration of X necessarily dilutes the concentration of Y. You can't encapsulate processes within their own vesicle and regulate concentrations independently like in eukaryotes.
That means that evolution will be constantly in a tug of war with itself because if you want to get better at one function, it'll almost always come at the expense of others. If an organism evolved near a hydro-thermal vent and developed metabolic paths to suite that environment, then started developing other metabolic paths that led it to stray away from the hydro-thermal vent, the offspring that continue to develop the secondary metabolic pathway would probably do so at the expense of metabolic paths that allowed it to live near hydro-thermal vents.
Still, there are some metabolic paths that would remain generally beneficial, like synthesizing amino acids, nucleic acids, and fatty acids.
I can’t believe this guy! He doesn’t even hide the fact that he’s a NASA shill! It’s Stated Clearly right there at the beginning of the video!
But seriously, great video John. Thanks for your great work. 🙌👏🙌👏🙌👏
It's obviously a joke but wouldnt the fact that its show clearly at the begining mean he isn't a shill because by definition shills hide the source of their revenue.
@@nocare i guess.
@@red2theelectricboogaloo961 The point of the comment was to point out that most people who cry shill don't know what it means.
@@nocare ok?
Human reasoning can sometimes be so elegant and beaautifullll. Lovely!
I suspect that the more we learn about simpler, less sophisticated forms of prokaryotic life, the more we'll be able to understand both the environment in which early life flourished & perhaps clarify which sequence of evolutionary stages would result in the modern Eukaryotic metabolism.
Metabolomics researcher here. Loveee your video
Can you imagine if they were successful? It would be perhaps the most significant breakthroughs of all time.
Where would it leave religious creation stories?
This reminds me of Dr. Ramachandran and the split-brain atheist/believer patient. You should give it a watch.
they'd figure out a way around that
Religion is also self - replicating information that uses its hosts to replicate in other hosts. It also mutates, as the replication is never perfect, and also evolves, competes with other strains, finds environmental niches and so on. It's not even entirely abiotic, as it uses living hosts' nervous cells to perform all those functions. In a way, it's somewhere on the boundary of life and inanimate stuff, inevitably drawing parallels with viruses. Just built from memes instead of genes.
@@vealck so religion are like prion.
Well, religious creation stories are surely out of the door already, aren't they? I mean, there's no way it actually happened like any of the religions say it did, considering evolution, big bang, a bunch of other galaxies existing and basically all we know about the world, really. Not a single smart religious person would actually believe in the religious creation stories as more than just a metaphor.
Thanks for making this video! I hadn’t even heard of this hypothesis before and it was really cool to learn about :)
So the idea of metabolism-first is that life didn’t need to start as a self-replicating molecule, and could’ve instead started even simpler, as a molecule helping to support the conditions that caused it to come into existence in the first place? That’s very interesting. That implies that we might not be descended from that first molecule, and instead from a molecule that that class of molecules indirectly helped support the creation of. That’s really interesting!
Serious question:
Would this suggest then that something like what we see in the TCA is a common evolutionary route for physical chemistry to take within such early planetary environments as those we've predicted? (i.e. sorta analogous to water repeatedly taking the "easiest" routes down a mountain, rather than the "hardest")
If so, would this then suggest that, hypothetically speaking, currently-undiscovered extraterrestrial life could likely have developed something similar to our 4-base nucleotide structure?
If extraterrestrial life is carbon-based like us, there is a high chance we would be metabolically (and this means physiologically and anatomically very similar). If there is indeed a "minimal metabolism", then there is no reason to believe that it'd evolved very differently than ours. We can even expect some form of convergent evolution in multicellualr organisms as they would have both a similar starting point and a relatively similar environment. The real alien life forms, as in "unrecognizable" as life or truly philosophically alien, will be non-carbon-based life (e.g. silicon, tungsten, plasma .. etc) as their starting point and their environment will be extremely different
Now wouldn't that be a neat trick, correctly predicting what xenobiology must be like, before you find any. But no, I don't think you can squeeze a prediction of RNA or DNA out of metabolism first hypothesis, rather that's what RNA first hypothesis would predict I think. At best you can conclude from metabolism first that there must be some common metabolic pathway all life first used to power itself.
Abiotic genesis of life is not possible
@@hosoiarchives4858 Of course it's possible. Even in today's world with so much complex life, sub-living organic molecules, compounds and mobile genetic elements, such as viruses, viroids, transposons and plastids, still exist alngside cellular organisms, not to mention prions, rogue proteins. The constituent monomer compounds of life self-assemble naturally in a variety of environments, including on asteroids, which we know from meteorites.
Even short chains (oligomers) of RNA and amino acids (peptides) arise spontaneously. That, over hundreds of millions of years, with trillions of reactions per second under various concentrated conditions, these oligomers would polymerize into stable nucleic acids and proteins (polypeptides) is highly likely.
Many abiotic catalysts (enzymes) to facilitate polymerization (formation of long chains) exist, and, as noted, Fairly short RNA sequences are capable of both enzymatic and information storage. Same goes for remarkably short peptides. The smallest biologically active protein known today contains only 20 amino acids, found in gila monster saliva. Even shorter functional peptides exist.
@@johntillman6068 Great story. Show me a partially constructed cell rising abiotically. I will wait here.
Very well done intro to a subject with a complicated history that seem to only lately(within the last 10-15 years) have garnered serious attention in the origin of life research community.
What a great way to tell science news.subscribed.
Thank you for being honest and not deceptive.
Loved the video, why couldn't there be 'extinct' metabolic reactions which helped give rise to the ones we see today? Why do we think we would be likely to see those fossils at all?
Origin and Nature of Life on Earth: the Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere by Eric Smith and Harold Morowitz might help....
I don't think you can see literal fossils of extinct metabolic pathways
The “fossils” refer to pathways that are shared by even the most distant forms of life, and are thus likely the oldest pathways
@Linda Lo it’s more like: macromolecules are made when amino acids combine, proteins are made, nuclei acids make RNA/DNA, phospholipids are formed, making membranes, inside of which reactions continued. Watch Stated Clearly’s other videos to get more details about how life likely originated, such as the RNA hypothesis, the video about Abiogenesis, the video about how membranes form without a cell being present, the video about DNA, and more
@Linda Lo the things I’m talk8ng about are chemistry too
What you need to establish is this: what is the most basic molecule you can create that had the ability to “attract/grab” atoms from the environment, duplicate itself and then breakaway to start the cycle all over again. Are there any simulations running on super computers that could figure this out?
You would simply establish a whole host of different molecules and atoms and start from scratch rather than providing a “primordial soup” from which to borrow from because doing so means you have to make too many assumptions about what was and wasn’t available at the time in that location.
This was awesome Jon! I love these videos on early-pre-life stuff. Really helps to put everything into perspective =)
Hi I strongly disagree with the content. Most of the effort goes to only cartoon illustrations. It has never been observed that life started spontaneously from non-life. If (huge if) we can somehow make life from non-life that would only prove it takes intelligence to make life.
I was taught evolution in school, but as I grew older I realized that the points used to support that this world is not designed are plain lies only in the imagination.
Here are some questions that I hope will make people think
1) What evolved first the blood or veins?
2) What evolved first the bones tendons or mussels?
3) What evolved first the skin or inner organs?
4) If we have rock layers of different ages, where does fresh young rock come from? (perhaps the new moon?)
5) If life started only once in very specific conditions are we are all inbred cannibals, or if life started more than once what stopped it from happening?
6) Why did some life forms decide to work together and others to kill each other?
7) How many of the questions did you answer using only your imagination with absolutely zero practical evidence in real life?
@@alrichs8146(5) If we descended from Adam and Eve aren't we all Inbreds according to your beliefs?!?!
@@trisapient Yes but we are not inbred cannibals nor related to monkeys. If evolution is true all life is inbred and everything that eats is a cannibal (single common ancestor).
There is no evidence of any life coming from nonlife by itself even once.
@@trisapient If all life shares a common ancestor, all life is inbred and everything that eats is a cambial.
If all life does not share a common ancestor, the "evolution tree of life" is a lie.
Take your pick.
@@alrichs8146 1) Blood evolved first, early organisms had coeloms filled with blood like nourishing fluid which was recycled without proper 'plumbing' so to speak
2) Muscles evolved first which is evident when you see invertebrates like Cephalopods, arthropods all have Muscles without bone, bones evolved from cartilage in vertebrates/chordates and tendons are just fibrous part of muscle that attaches to a structure.
3) Depending on your definition skin evolved first but at that time it also did the functions of inner organs like in case of sponges, it's only later that endoderm/inner germ layer begins to differentiate into inner organs and division of labor occurs
4) Clearly you haven't heard of recycling of earth's crust. New rock is formed from volcanic activity/ tectonic activity I.e igneous rock and also from weathering of old rocks I.e sedimentary rocks. Crust is constantly destroyed and created with the movement of Tectonic plates, inner older rocks get melted to form magma when crust is pushed under into mantle and then come out as lava due to eruptions and volcanic activity forming new rock between tectonic plates. Layers are created from sediments which harden into rock under pressure I.e metamorphic rock.
5)??? No not the case as anybody beyond your 5th cousin could be considered a genetic stranger, it's like asking if tea is a soup, you are reaching here, this is a stretch and any more of it you will receive an Olympic medal for gymnastics.
6) Well you'll be surprised to hear animals help each other to kill each other (wolf pack) helping and killing are not mutually exclusive. No one just 'decided', you phrased the question as if it was a moral decision. Life will try to fill all niches it can, there are hundreds of parasites that have entire life cycles dedicated to exclusivly live inside human eyeball, brain, flesh and genitals. No organism just woke up one day to make a conscious moral choice between helping or killing, any action that increases capability of reproducing would just be more common in the next generation.
7) You probably aren't asking for a genuine answer here.
The problem with any theory of abiogenesis is that whatever mechanism one chooses as the initial essential building blocks of life is that adding another essential component makes the mechanism spectacularly less likely as the product of their probabilities. By the time one has assembled a fully self-replicating simple entity, this probability has reached truly staggering improbability, with some authors estimating on the order of 1 out of 10 to the 40th power. Anyone giving even a casual glance at your excellent chart of intracellular metabolism will get the point. The cell will not function correctly unless all this stuff is present and working. Small components of these metabolic processes may occur spontaneously in the proper “warm little pond”, but it would require an amazing pond (like one the size of the universe with all the time since the Big Bang) for an entire cell to form by chance.
In one respect you are correct. No one can know the precise probability of abiogenesis. OK, grant that this “spontaneous metabolism” suggested in this video may occur. Grant also that RNA bases may attach to sugars on certain clay substrates in certain little ponds. Grant that certain amino acids may form when one passes a current through a soup of organic molecules in a solution. Grant that lipids self assemble into a bilayer in the proper solution. However, get me from there to the simplest protein, or RNA that actually self replicates, and you face staggering odds. Then get from there to a single cell. Spread it out over time. There hasn’t been enough time. Because we can’t calculate the odds precisely does not mean they are not stupendous.
@rent a shill: _"we are here. odds of life happening is irrelavant because it happened."_
There's a *HUGE* fallacy in that statement. You're _assuming_ that life formed by naturalistic materialistic chance processes. But it could _not_ have for the very reason you dismiss. *David Ferry* is right.
*rent a shill:* _"note that saying 'magic did it' was never a correct answer in human history"_
You're conflating two separate steps. First, use math and science to conclude that origin of life by naturalistic materialistic processes is absolutely unarguably *impossible* in less than a trillion trillion trillion years.
Second, consider what intelligent agent designed life. That's neither science nor magic. But you _don't like_ this, so you conclude it's the wrong answer. Your rejection isn't science either.
The probability of the "Luca cell" to form by (chance) is 0%. That's the truth. 😂
@@KenJackson_US Yes, let's talk about what intelligent agent. Why is your intelligent agent so--dumb? Mine is smart enough to have conceived this at the molecular level in such a way as to make life inevitable everywhere it can be supported. Did yours mold us from clay? Because if yours did, my agent is clearly superior to yours.
@@VulcanLogic: _"..., my agent is clearly superior to yours."_
Your agent? The living Lord God made both of us. Your _"agent"_ only lives in the heads of people created by the God and never created anything.
Do you know anything about how life works at the molecular level? Do you know what a protein is? How it's encoded in DNA and synthesized by enzymes that were themselves also synthesized from code in DNA?
I recommend everyone read a few of Bill Martin's (Düsseldorf Uni) published articles for the latest, most coherent model.
I can't believe it took me a week to realize this was here. This is the only channel for which I have the alarm bell on! I've never even come close to being tempted to want that on before. I'm going to go searching for a patreon for you and if you don't have one, make one because I'll subscribe.
Sometimes I wonder if the amount of energy put into sustained heavy agitation of a mixing process doesn't get factored into the potential chemical mixing to allow for abiogenesis. Look at what happens with waves hitting coastal rocks, waterfalls, or steam jets around volcanic or geothermal activity. A lot of turbulent churn that can erode faces away exposing new material, and do things like aeration that would permeate some oily film, and rapidly change conditions between icy cold and scalding hot. Just allowing something to bubble in a lab with the only input being modest heat and a magnetic stirrer may not be enough in terms of dynamic input into a chemical process. I wonder if anyone has tried a more "crazy" lab setup while attempting to figure this out?
Yeah. I was imagining a variation of the Miller-Urey experiment that *also* simulate those environments. Maybe there's also a natural process that filters out the junk from bioactive compounds that we didn't account for, right? The water in that old experiment was stagnant so of course tar would build up, right?
Great overview of the most interesting question there is. :)
I'd like to see a deep dive into photosynthesis! Also, the reason life (in general) chose the 22 amino acids from which to produce all the thousands of proteins. Love the summaries and animations!!
My first reply was deleted for some reason, here's a suggestion though
th-cam.com/video/jlO8NiPbgrk/w-d-xo.html
Edit: now that this one works, I'll just recreate my first reply:
_How about this: [same link as above]_
_It's an animation of Photosystem II (”first step” of photosynthesis) down to its atoms_
So clear. Thanks. Your illustrations are great.
A new Stated Clearly is always an event!
Thanks for taking the time to parse all this complex information and _state it clearly_ for us! (nope, I do not regret it)
I hate to say it but that was stated clearly.
One of my favorite books that tackles this topic is Life Ascending by Nick Lane. A little bit of understanding of the basics of cellular biology and chemistry are required but it is ultimately written for laypeople like me.
Nice video, loved the animation. I wrote an essay on the topic a few months ago and really dug through the literature. Maybe you could consider doing a long video on it because there really is so much stuff out there. For anyone interested, look into the work of Bill Martin and Nick Lane, great place to start in my opinion, but after all most stuff on the origin of life is opinion :)
I think this is the most exciting video you have evwr made.
Hi Jon, I used to have a poster on my wall of all the chemical pathways of life when I studied zoology many years ago. Your chart looks even more complex, where have you taken it from?
The source is within the video
Just type ”metabolic pathways” or ”human metabolism” on image search and it will show up in one of the first few results
Polyphosphate and the Origin of Life
The principal problem with nearly all concepts of the origin of life is the formation of polymers such as nucleic acids, polysaccharides, and polypeptides. Chemical thermodynamics states that the equilibrium in all of three of these classes of compounds is in favor of DEPOLYMERIZATION. Left alone in water, all three spontaneously hydrolyze into monomers. This is a serious, perhaps fatal, problem in most theories of abiogenesis. The solution to this problem has recently been published: Polyphosphate.
There are two critical facts of phosphate chemistry involved here:
1. monophosphate ion in solution is polymerized into polyphosphate by ultraviolet light.
2. polyphosphate reacts with monomers such as amino acids, monosaccharides, and nucleotides to drive condensation reaction creating polymers, with the polyphosphate being converted back into monophosphate.
In the primitive oceans of Old Earth, there were many simple organic compounds produced either from UV irradiation in the ocean, or from UV irradiation in space in comets. Many of these compounds are driven to polymerize by polyphosphate which is constantly generated by UV irradiation. Other simple organic compounds such as citrate kept calcium in solution and prevented the precipitation of calcium phosphate hydrate (apatite).
The strongest evidence that this mechanism is indeed correct is the fact that organic polyphosphates such as ATP are STILL the energy currency and primary drivers of life even today. What is ATP other than a polyphosphate (triphosphate) with an organic "handle" which permits the cell to transport the molecule to the point where it is needed.
Interesting hypothesis. Is the abundance of phosphate in the presence of UV light and bio-monomers in the early Earth enough to make this plausible?
@@456MrPeople Unknown and possibly unknowable.
1:31 The law of evolution has 3 parts, you left out one.
Heritability + Variation + Differential Reproductive Success = Evolution
or simply
Heritability + Variation + Selection = Evolution
Selection often happens automatically. So long as there are finite resources, then some patterns will be able to take over a larger share of those. But yes, it does need to be mentioned, since without selection your variety of forms are just "distinctions without a difference".
Heritability + Variation + Reproduction = Evolution. Selection surely helps, but strictly speaking not required.
Some of the best science videos on TH-cam!!!
what is the map at 1:05 and where can I find it?
I think that googling what's written on the bottom left corner at that time of the video will find it for you.
Alternatively, you could check the description and follow the link about "a full list of links to scientific papers and articles related to this animation".
www.differencebetween.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Difference-Between-Metabolism-and-Digestion_Figure-2.jpg
There you go buddy:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Metabolism_-_Pathways.jpg
My goodness. So much work in one video. ❤️❤️.
Great evolutionary leaps
Reproduction
Clustering (multicellular)
Brain
Reason, Conscience, Being
Reproduction : th-cam.com/video/ergfPuZz9-0/w-d-xo.html
Clustering : www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39558-8
Brain : there are many examples of living animals with rudimentary brain, i'm not sure what the "leap" is here.
Conscience : th-cam.com/video/ergfPuZz9-0/w-d-xo.html (same video as reproduction)
This is the exact thing I love to learn about. There is quite a big chance we can create life in the coming years.
Then scientists will finally prove that life was CREATED!
@@PaulNewfield-PasadenaCAU-wb4xg No, they prove that life CAN be created. And depending on the method they use, they can also prove that it can form naturally too.
" it MIGHT be doable?" .... huh ?
Thank you for this very stimulating video
There is no such thing as a simple cell.
not today no.
but couple billion years ago there were
simplest cell you see today is a product of 3+ billion years of evolution.
so ofcourse its not simple today
@@spatrk6634 there were plenty of cells 3.8 Billion years ago that were every bit as sophisticated as cells today
@@roberttormey4312 which means that life arisen earlier than 3.8 billion years.
like 4.3
can you name some of those plenty of cells that are as complex as today cells?
@@roberttormey4312 Prove it.
@@nekiddo Indeed.
I am mathematician. But I am interested in biology. This series are absolutely stunning.
Hey mathematician, how many permutations are possible for a chain of 100 amino acids?
@@KenJackson_US
All your comment does it show your ignorance on the topic of abiogenesis. genuine question; Have you actually read anything about it at all?
Had you done the slightest bit of research instead of regurgitating the bullshit spoon fed to you. you would actually see that *NO ONE* is proposing that polypeptides spontaneously arose in the open ocean. it's literally the shittiest strawman argument ever.
You're not thinking, @@deathbyseatoast8854. Regardless of whether the first proteins formed in the open ocean or a billion years later, if life formed from non-life, then you *HAVE TO* account for the formation of proteins (or more to the point, the formation of protein encoded genes).
So asking _"how many permutations are possible for a chain of 100 amino acids?"_ as I did, is *extremely* relevant. The fact that people with faith in abiogenesis run away from it hurling insults, as you did, is telling.
@@KenJackson_US
yeah fair enough mate.
Can you (a _"mathematician")_ confirm that there are 20^100 or about 10^130 (ten to the 130 power) permutations of a chain of 100 amino acids, @@deathbyseatoast8854?
Darwin never "clearly showed" anything. He didn't even know if evolution was true, himself. To be sure, no one has ever shown any process of evolution ever taking place. It is only believed by those who don't want to have cause of everything being contingent on a Creator of every physical thing even though that is what all of the scientific evidence shows.
Haha. You complain of a alleged lack of evidence from biology, and then in the next sentence appeal to a magic invisible supernatural creator that no one can observe.
Irony so think you can cut it with a chainsaw.
@@hammalammadingdong6244 Apparently you are unaware of the contingency factor.
@@JungleJargon - apparently you are unaware of the mountains of evidence- including directly observed speciation- that confirms evolution.
@@hammalammadingdong6244 What speciation is there when none of the supposed common ancestors even exist? You can’t get written instructions that aren’t there.
@@JungleJargon hahah nice make belief world
So much love to you! I have been watching your shorts recently and it has led me to your long form materials. I curate my feed to be nerd friendly- thank you for contributing!
There was a lot of things in this video I couldn't understand. Mostly just specifics and different terms. The pictures and animations allowed me to understand the concept of what you were saying though. It was a great video.
Absolute (Necessary) Criteria for Life (as defined by Tibor Gánti):
1. Inherent Unity: Life is inherently a single, unified system. This unity is essential for the functioning and survival of the organism.
2. Metabolism: As in the original list, this is the process by which a living organism sustains itself, growing and reproducing by taking in energy from its surroundings and using it in a series of controlled chemical reactions.
3. Inherent Stability (Homeostasis): Life has the ability to maintain a stable internal environment, even when external conditions change significantly. This is demonstrated in examples like dormant seeds or frozen insects that can survive in an inactive state for extended periods.
4. Information Subsystem: Living organisms must have a system for storing the genetic instructions needed to guide their functions and reproduction. This information is typically stored in DNA.
5. Regulation and Control: Living organisms have the ability to control and regulate their own processes, both internally (such as metabolic processes) and in response to their environment.
Potential Criteria for Life (as defined by Tibor Gánti):
6. Growth and Reproduction: Living organisms have the potential to grow (increase in size and complexity) and reproduce (create new organisms like themselves).
7. Inherited Changes (Evolution): Living organisms can undergo changes that can be passed on to subsequent generations. This allows for evolution and adaptation over time.
8. Mortality: While somewhat philosophical, this criterion recognizes that all known life forms have a finite lifespan.
I like how you clearly state things
My son and I love your videos. Thanks mate.
Wow!! I just discovered this channel - absolutely amazing how you break this topic down and distill very complex concepts into understandable media. You are a great educator. The animations and graphics are so fantastic!!! Thank you!!!
I love your channel and I learnt a lot, but you definitely need to upload more often.
Instant subscription. Abiogenesis is so freaking fascinating!
Because it is not possible
You are correct
Abiogenesis is responsible for creation of any Living creature such as animal and plant and Life is diversity by Evolution that's created many Life-form
Well done. This is the best intro to metabolism first that I've seen. I would have liked to see a little bit more about the details of some of the biochemical processes such as volcanic mineral catalysis chemical reaction that would have made the video longer oh, and perhaps misleading with respect to the diversity of hypotheses.
Tibor Gánti's definition of life includes a theoretical model called the chemoton, which he introduced as an abstract model for the fundamental unit of life. Here's a summary of the chemoton model and its implications:
Basics of the Chemoton Model: The chemoton is a protocell that grows by metabolism, reproduces by biological fission, and has at least rudimentary genetic variation. It contains three subsystems: an autocatalytic network for metabolism, a lipid bilayer for structural organization, and a replicating machinery for information. The metabolism of the chemoton is in an autonomous chemical cycle and does not depend on enzymes. It is believed to be the original ancestor of all organisms1.
Structure and Function of the Chemoton: Autocatalysis in the chemoton produces its own structures and functions. The model includes a molecule that is spontaneously produced and is incorporated into the structure. This molecule is amphipathic like membrane lipids, but it is highly dynamic, leaving small gaps that close and open frequently. This unstable structure is important for new amphipathic molecules to be added, so that a membrane is subsequently formed. This will become a microsphere. Due to metabolic reaction, osmotic pressure will build up inside the microsphere, generating a force for invaginating the membrane, and ultimately division. Continuous reactions will also invariably produce variable polymers that can be inherited by daughter cells. In the advanced version of the chemoton, the hereditary information will act as a genetic material, something like a ribozyme of the RNA world1.
Chemoton and the Origin of Life: The chemoton model is used in studying the chemical origin of life. The chemoton can be considered as a primitive or minimal cellular life, as it satisfies the definition of what a cell is: a unit of biological activity enclosed by a membrane and capable of self-reproduction. A synthesized chemoton can survive in a wide range of chemical solutions, form materials for its internal components, metabolize its chemicals, and grow in size and multiply itself. As an autocatalytic but non-genetic entity, it predates the enzyme-dependent precursors of life. However, being capable of self-replication and producing variant metabolites, it possibly could be an entity with the first biological evolution, therefore, the origin of the unit of Darwinian selection1.
Chemoton and Artificial Life: The chemoton model has laid the foundation for some aspects of artificial life, particularly in software development and experimentation in the investigation of artificial life. The chemoton simplifies the otherwise complex biochemical and molecular functions of living cells. Since the chemoton is a system consisting of a large but fixed number of interacting molecular species, it can effectively be implemented in a process algebra-based computer language1.
Comparison with Other Theories of Life: The chemoton is one of several theories of life, including the hypercycle of Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster, the (M,R) systems of Robert Rosen, autopoiesis (or self-building) of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, and the autocatalytic sets of Stuart Kauffman. All of these theories, including the chemoton, found their original inspiration in Erwin Schrödinger's book "What is Life?"
This needs much more views
I am completely speechless. Thank you for this great video.
Wow nice thanks for explaining, this is definitely a very reasonable and convincing theory of life
The animation at 5:53 really made it all come together for me in a way I could understand
What I was confused about is what is the "tar paradox"? That was mentioned around the end of the video but I didn't pick up on what that was if you said it earlier in the video
Well done sir. 👏👏
THANK YOU! Great presentation.
Epic. Thank you for your content, is always very informative.
it is a real pleasure to watch these videos, thank you. I wish similar things could be done for other arcane subjects.
Intriguing. Wow! There is just so much to learn. Thank you for sharing.
Absurdly amazing
I have heard doubts about the RNA world hypothesis for long, and I wondered what other explanations have people come up with.
It's quite a shame that I, a biochemistry major, was not aware of this...
Anyways, nice job!
Thank you for these incredible videos, I really learn so much from you.
Please do keep them coming.
As someone who's in the CS field actively researching AI and Machine Learning I strongly believe that the insights we unearth from studying Biological systems could one day help us simulate true intelligence.
I agree. I've been super interested in the Lex Fridman podcast where he discusses this sort of thing with biologists and computer scientists.
Hi Stated Clearly - nice video. What is the connection with the Transformer concepts of Nick Lane?
Thanks for the vid. Very informative.
This was interesting, I was skeptical of metabolism first however this was an eye opener.
You deserved so many more subscribers and viewers, I love this channel!
Very useful - thanks.
Thank you for sharing the papers in the video!
Nice work. Your content deserves more exposure.
the idea of solo macromolecule evolution is so cool
amazing video.
Watched this for the second time now its simply fascinating
Abiotic genesis of life is not possible , this video is the same as a snake handling church in West Virginia
@@hosoiarchives4858 Great input there glad you did the work finding out the science Hosoi archives
@@Basieeee can you explain how a naturally occurring amino acid can be synthesized into a protein without a synthesizing engine called a cell. I’ll wait here
By logic, enclosed spaces are separated systems, similarly to an ecosystem or an organism. Thinking about it like this, makes it easier to understand how these reactions are cyclical and seem "fine--tuned". They had time, they may have had a specific place and they had the right tools to make all of this happen.
Y'all do wonderful work. Keep it up!
Excellent presentation
The return of a king.
Great to see another awesome video from you. Greetings from Shiraz
This is so great
Another great video. Thanks. Really cool topic.
Amazing video as usual! Please never stop doing these amazing videos. Thank you.
Is computational chemistry being or has being used to elucidate the problem of the origin of life?. Anyone knows anything about it, computational methods/approaches?.
Cheers Jon! I always look forward to your videos! Love me some Szathmary =P
Super cool!!!
Love this!