“American chemists have shown complex reaction chains that, with the participation of ultraviolet radiation, can occur with a pair of simplest compounds and lead to the parallel appearance of components of all three key types of biomolecules. Nucleotides - for nucleic acids, amino acids - for proteins, lipids - for the cell membrane."
S. Vasiliev "One of the paradoxes of the origin of life has been solved", Naked Science magazine
Which came first - a chicken or an egg? Biologists who are storming the mystery of the origin of life are constantly trying to solve this old-time joking riddle in their own way. Another sensation was the hypothesis of Cambridge scientists, who, on the basis of their research, made a Solomon decision - all the main components of life arose simultaneously …
From this one can draw very unexpected and even paradoxical conclusions about the phenomenon of life in general, and about the strange absence of aliens, and about the future of our civilization …
A RUNNING WORLD DEPRIVED OF LIFE
It is very interesting to observe from the sidelines the searches of biochemists who find the origins of earthly life in the most unexpected places under the most unexpected conditions. The newborn Earth appears to them as either raging seas of lava, or an ice-covered desert, or even some kind of hybrid, rapidly changing the climate from Martian to Venusian and back …
Promotional video:
Someone still believes that at the very beginning the “warm shallow reservoir” of Academician Oparin was the cradle of the living, someone was carried away by “dark smokers” of underwater geysers and volcanoes, and someone cannot calmly look at the prehistoric flinty beaches …
And over all this hung the hypothesis of "panspermia" - a completely different life, brought to our planet in the icy nuclei of comets, rocky cores of asteroids, or simply in the pores of small meteorites.
Initially, academic scientists avoided the hypothesis of the appearance of "alien microorganisms" or even their simplest parts. Indeed, in fact, the panspermia hypothesis does not explain anything about the true origin of life, but only transfers its beginning somewhere to the vastness of the Universe.
This was until the "panspermists" came up with an amazing scenario. Somewhere in a distant nebula, a comet or asteroid flew by. There they were saturated and saturated with molecules of organic compounds, which are very often found in space clouds. Then the very long wanderings of the celestial body carrying the "seeds of life" began in our Galaxy (and maybe in the neighboring stellar islands!).
It is impossible even to imagine what could have been encountered on the way of such a "molecular ark" … It could have been fluxes of various radiation, and plasma clouds, and other nebulae with their own chemical composition. So organic molecules gradually turned into real biocompounds, and those into microorganisms.
BATTLE OF IDEAS
The renewed idea of panspermia has caused a lot of trouble for traditional biologists. After all, its strengths were the practically unlimited time of wandering of the "molecular ark" and the countless number of cosmic factors that cosmophysicists are constantly discovering.
And now the "empire of traditionalists-biochemists" struck back!
Biologists from the Cambridge Molecular Biology Laboratory tried to reconcile two armies of specialists: supporters of the so-called RNA world (remember the school - all living things consist of RNA and DNA), in which everything was taken over by RNA molecules, and their opponents, who defended certain primary processes leading to the synthesis of biomolecules and their compounds.
Will Cambridge professors be able to try on hostile scientific schools? Basically, logic is on their side. It is one thing when a housewife hastily cooks several dishes in the kitchen at the same time, and it is quite another when a lonely bachelor thoughtfully builds up the logic of an unambiguous meal, the only possible one due to the scarcity of the food set.
In any case, the "Solomonov" approach to the origin of life can not only save biology from the "curse of time trouble", when any theory is sorely lacking time to implement its own scenario, but also answer the Fermi paradox …
This curious paradox arose in the conversation of the outstanding physicist Enrico Fermi with the "father of the A-bomb" Edward Teller exactly 65 years ago. Then Fermi asked the question: “Are we the only intelligent and technologically advanced civilization in the Universe? And if not, then where are all these little green men?"
PARADOX FERME AND "ALIEN'S LIFE"
Each new theory of the origin of life in one way or another affects the existence of MZCH - little green men that ufologists are looking for everywhere. Fermi's paradox clearly does not fit into the version of the "microbial ark", but his questions, in principle, find answers in the "all at once" theory. Indeed, in this case, the combination of all biochemical reactions upon the appearance of living things is a unique combination of circumstances.
Thus, the "microbial ark of panspermia" turns into the planetary ark "Earth", floating among the many lifeless worlds of the Milky Way.
The hypothesis of the uniqueness of life (at least - protein) in the Universe (or at least in our Galaxy) causes the deepest responsibility and … ufological disappointments. However, there is also a completely incredible hybrid version that combines the theory of "everything at once" and … panspermia.
This "hybrid" version belongs to the Nobel laureate Christian de Duve, who for a long time tried to convey to the scientific community completely "heretical" ideas about the "hidden biosphere". According to him, this "parallel life" is in deep secrecy from humanity, and it is very difficult to detect it even with the help of electron microscopy.
However, this is true only for normal conditions of existence. An unpredictable crisis in the development of a "biocatastrophe" may throw out something more terrible than plague, cancer and AIDS combined.
De Duve was convinced that the emergence of life was not an exceptional event that occurred by coincidence. The great mystery of the birth of the living according to de Duve is a repeatedly repeating pattern that arises at different stages of the development of the planet.
The theory of the existence of other forms of life on Earth has caused violent controversy in the scientific world. At first, she was "met with hostility" by conservative biologists, but over time, many joined the camp of de Duve's supporters. Among the "biorevolutionaries" one can find biophysicists, biochemists, and even theoretical physicists.
At the same time, a circle of orthodox biochemists and organic chemists has formed, who consider such studies to be almost pseudoscience. They are especially fiercely opposed to the granting of grants for such works, considering them only a tool for advertising individual biologists and their scientific schools.
THREE WAYS OF EARTH ALIENS
Meanwhile, supporters of the "underground biosphere" hypothesis have developed a number of theories about how several sources of life could coexist on Earth at once. Their hypothetical evolution would have to occur separately along three main paths.
The first path belongs to the so-called mirror creatures. The fact is that all organic compounds have a three-dimensional configuration and differ in the direction in which they polarize the incident light - to the right or to the left. The molecules themselves are thus defined as "levorotatory" and "dextrorotatory".
The first includes all amino acids known to science, but the double helix of DNA is dextrorotatory. Therefore, it is quite natural to believe that if organic molecules have opposite directions of rotation, then creatures from the "mirror biosphere" will appear before us. It is somewhat reminiscent of Timir, in which amazing creatures can also live.
The second path leads us to astrobiology - the science of extraterrestrial carbon-protein life. The entire terrestrial fauna is built on a standard set of two dozen different amino acids.
It is their various combinations that form all known protein compounds. However, not so long ago, in a meteorite substance of unknown origin, two more "foreign" amino acids were discovered - isovaline and pseudoleucine.
Astrobiologists suggest that this indicates the possibility of the existence of alien alternative proteins. And then, who knows - maybe a different life somewhere on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn is based precisely on such unusual conjunctions.
The third, organosilicon pathway, is the oldest in the history of biochemistry. Science fiction writers were the first to discuss it. Thus, Anatoly Dneprov (A. P. Mitskevich), a well-known Soviet writer, physicist by education, wrote about the principles of creating organosilicon organisms.
Half a century ago, he very convincingly told in the story "The Clay God" how it would be possible to create organosilicon creatures, including man.
So what gave birth to life on Earth?
It is quite possible that the current generation of scientists will receive the final answer. But whether this answer will solve the Fermi paradox is the next question! It is possible that only our distant descendants will answer it.
Semyon KONSTANTINOV