Is the transition from chemistry to biology a mystery?

But the heart of the issue is that the inanimate had to transition into the animate. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

S ends this second weekend on the origin of life written by a foremost biologist. But when all is said and done, we are still today no wiser about this than we are about the missing Dark Matter. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Footnote. “George Whitesides draw my attention to his recent paper on the improbability of life.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

“Thus the way of how life comes into being is determined by essential structural condition in space and time. In the present view Shannon's information gets a meaning with the incidence of the appearance of the first self-reproducing and evolving entity.”

Life as inevitable. “Accidental errors in reproduction are not determinants for what essentially happens.” (No comment on life on other planet systems). https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Life as inevitable. “These events are seen to be inevitable if appropriate environmental conditions are present that drive the process. Otherwise life cannot emerge.“ https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

2 giant steps. “That is the first appearance of an entity that has the capacity to evolve by multiplication, variation and selection, and much later the first appearance of a device that has the capacity of a permanent increase in complexity.” https://t.co

2 giant steps. “This paper is focused on what is seen as the decisive two steps in theoretical modeling the origin of life.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The problem of complexity. “ERD is an enzyme catalyzing formation of D-strands complementary to R-templates, and EDR is an enzyme catalyzing formation of R-strands complementary to D-templates.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The problem of complexity. “The barrier is overcome when it is assumed that E1 evolves to enzymes ERD and EDR.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The problem of complexity. “The increasing contamination with increasing complexity of the evolving system leads to a barrier.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Replication errors. “The barrier is overcome by selection of replication products that fit into an aggregate of precisely interlocking oligomers.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Replication errors. “Errors in replication produce more and more misfolded structures. This leads to a barrier in the evolution of oligomers at a critical length due to the unavoidable mismatches in replication.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Replication errors. “Oligomers are assumed to evolve by increasing in length and increasing specificity in folding. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Self-assembly. “Most promising is the development of single molecule machines based on changes in conformation.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Self-assembly. “First interfacial molecular devices were obtained in the authors research group (self-assembly-monolayer method (SAM). Up to 37 layers can be superimposed.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Information. “To construct replicating oligomers with 11 monomers of arbitrary sequence requires 10(21) = 2(70) de-novo forming oligomers, in average, until the first replicating oligomer appears. Thus, this oligomer carries 70 bits of information.” https:

Information content. “A living individual, in the present context, is an entity that carries information.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

“Based on the present assumptions the probability to find a correct oligomer in a cm3 is 10(-5) Assuming disturbing contaminations being absent, a single correct oligomer is expected to be in a mm3.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

“It is reasonable to assume that the particular environmental conditions required to drive a continuous replication of oligomers are given in a small location, say in a volume of a cm3 or a mm3.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Lineages. “Then the probability that the descendants overcome that phase and continuously multiply is 0.1. On the average, 10(21) = 2(70) oligomers emerge de-novo until a replicating oligomer appears and is successful.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Fitness. “Replicating oligomers can die out by chance. The probability of the replicating form to die out in the critical initial phase of multiplication by statistical reason should be about 0.9.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Throws of the dice. “A symmetry breaking is induced determining further evolution.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Throws of the dice. “Thus, on the average, (1/2) * 10(20) oligomers de-novo appear, until a replicable oligomer comes into existence. This accidentally occurring replicable oligomer is either right handed or left handed.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Throws of the dice. “The probability of de-novo formation of a replicable oligomer (10 links, L-chirality) is 0.0110 = 10(-20) A replicable oligomer with D-chirality appears with the same probability.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Throws of the dice. “How many oligomers consisting of 11 monomers must be formed de-novo until a replicable oligomer actually appears?” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The odds. “The probability of linking two monomers correctly. The probability that a correct bond is formed (at 5' position of the second partner in the case of a nucleotide) is (1/8) * (1/8) ≈ 0.01.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

“This is a requirement to allow precision in replication.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Chem —> bio. “Can a replicable oligomer appear with reasonable probability? The monomers must be of the correct kind (assuming a contamination by similar monomers), homochiral and correctly linked. This is a requirement to allow precision in replication

The saltation. “A similar transition can be considered as the process that leads to higher forms of life in the universe.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The saltation. “It is reasonable to assume that such entities may evolve, again in an immense number of distinct steps, to entities with biogenetic apparatus.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The saltation. “The emergence of such a primordial form is what we define as "emergence of complex life". Its initial occurrence may be called the transition from chemistry to biology.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Genetic machinery. “This entity constitutes a primordial form with the particular property of all life on earth.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Genetic machinery. “In a distinct immense number of steps a situation is finally reached by the occurrence of a first entity that allows an evolution to ever increasing complexity provided that appropriate environmental conditions are given.” https://t.co/

Genetic machinery. “The existent kind of genetic device. A fundamental change in the machinery is required to further evolve.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The bright line. “This property is not present in any ancestral form in a pre-biotic world.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The bright line. “The first entity with Darwinian properties, that is, an entity determined by causality but seemingly behaving as if it would have a goal, namely the goal to survive as a species by reproduction and to evolve by variation and selection.” h

No accident. “Particular steps inducing an important evolutionary process are inevitable. Thus, in the essence, the evolutionary process is not accidental.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

No accident. “Evolutionary steps are initiated, sooner or later, by the accidental occurrence of an entity with new functionality due to some mismatch in replication.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Vanishing improbabilities. “This assumption is experimentally supported, indicating that particular conditions at a particular location are required in a prebiotic synthesis of nucleotides.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Vanishing improbabilities. “Let us consider a scenario beginning with G and C nucleotides separated from contaminations by very specific environmental conditions.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Drive to complexity. “Areas with less and less appropriate conditions are colonized with more and more complex entities each having the capacity to get established in the corresponding area.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Drive to complexity. “Postulating distinct and diversified environmental conditions is fundamental to drive evolution to increasing complexity.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

I finish after this section a fragment on whether another life form is evolving under our very eyes in autonomous computer code. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Fragment from nature continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the origin of life, continuing from the very strange entities transposons and prions, where chemicals evolve and reproduce. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

RT @TenFleming: The elusive origin of life. “"The center is still mysterious" (Stuart Kauffman).” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

RT @TenFleming: The elusive origin of life. ““Most chemists believe, as I do, that life emerged spontaneously from a mixture of molecules i…

The origin of life is just a part of this unresolved saga. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Assuming a creation story of the Big Bang, life was born from an infinitely dense very hot speck, before even matter and space and time existed. After 13.7 billion years, atoms learned how to talk. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

So ends this first of two weekends on a huge elephant in the room. How did life evolve? https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Adaptation and niche exploitation. “Small changes can lead to highly specific adaptations, for example the colonization of a region not accessible to the previous existent forms.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Adaptation and niche exploitation. “According to the present postulate only those entities can survive that are adapted to the environment. Adaptation is the result of being selected in a Darwinian process.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Postulates. “Another fundamental postulate is the assumption that distinct and distinctly changing environmental conditions are present driving the evolutionary process.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Postulates. “It is assumed that appropriate energy-rich monomers and appropriate environmental conditions are given. These assumptions are set as postulates.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Lemmas upon lemmas. “In a theory, once the postulates are formulated, the task is to find their logical consequences. This is quite different from guesses and intuitions.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Lemmas upon lemmas. “In the present case the task is to show by logical considerations how the genetic apparatus-the basic machinery of life-might have originated.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The goal. “Here we focus on fundamental aspects of life's origin that have not been emphasized in earlier papers. The aim is to conceptualize a theory. A theory brings experimental facts in a rational order by proposing a set of assumptions (postulates).”

Energy input. “Guenter von Kiedrowski https://t.co/cfzqLcgkUm. have experimentally demonstrated replication of a short DNA analogue driven by cycles of environmental changes.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Driven by symmetry breaking. “It has been shown by Gerald Joyce et. al. that a pair of two ligase-ribozymes do exponentially replicate indefinitely. This is in favor of the given scenario.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Driven by symmetry breaking. “This is a process of spontaneous symmetry breaking determining the succeeding evolution. All events leading to life's origin are driven by distinct environmental conditions.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Symmetry probabilities. “This initial template has D or L chirality with equal probability. Either D or L originated.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Symmetry probabilities. The homochiral RNA oligomer “came into being in a heterochiral mixture of nucleodides in a most seldom oligomerization process occurring by chance.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Symmetry probabilities. “In an early given scenario it was assumed that the origin of life began by enzyme-free replication of a homochiral RNA oligomer.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The causal origin of life. “It is a particular process consisting of an immense number of causally interlocked steps.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Preamble. “This paper is based on another early assumption: life originates as a sequence of distinct chemical reactions. Chemical reactions, per se, are in agreement with thermodynamics.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The elusive origin of life. "We must seek out principles that would explain the transformation of inanimate and animate. And it is on this most fundamental of issues that confusion and controversy stubbornly remain." (Günter Wächtershäuser).” https://t.co/

The elusive origin of life. ““Most chemists believe, as I do, that life emerged spontaneously from a mixture of molecules in a pre-biotic Earth. How? I have no idea" (George Whitesides).” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The elusive origin of life. “"The center is still mysterious" (Stuart Kauffman).” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

The elusive origin of life. “Today it is broadly assumed that "the central issue regarding the very essence of living systems remains unresolved" (Addy Pross).” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Instability. “In Manfred Eigen's view this fact is an essential thermodynamic principle in understanding the origin of life bridging the gap between chemistry and biology.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Instability. Nobel winner “Ilya Prigogine and Peter Glansdorff showed that a homogeneous system in a steady state far from equilibrium is unstable.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Contrary to physics. “Eugene Wigner believed to have demonstrated that the origin of life is in contradiction to the second law.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Figure. The model: --> biogenetic apparatus --> capacity of permanent increase in fidelity. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Figure. The model: Monomers --> Oligomers --> first replicating oligomers --> multiplication, variation, selection of replicating oligomers --> primordial genetic apparatus --> capacity of permanent increase in complexity… https://t.co/4pJlJ

Symmetry and chirality. “Another consequence of this initial event is a spontaneous symmetry breaking due to the equal probabilities that the oligomer starting the process is right handed or left handed.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

“Thus, Information…takes a meaning with that instant, the appearance of the first entity that evolves by multiplication, variation, selection and keeps that meaning during the entire evolution of the living (Information carrying) state of matter.” https://

Life as information. “The appearance of an entity with Darwinian behavior is instantaneous and linked with the creation of matter that carries information.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Origin of life. “The essence of what happens is inevitable, not accidental.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Making life from scratch. “For chemists, understanding the origin of life requires the experimental modeling of a process that bridges this gap. They will not consider the problem solved before they are able to perform such tasks.” https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

It continues from the recent string of Fragments on transposons and prions and will terminate after this concludes in a consideration of whether computer code is a rudimentary form of new life. https://t.co/4pJlJf9GjM

Fragment from nature focuses on the origin of life, summarized by a review article, ‘Is the transition from chemistry to biology a mystery?’ By the late Hans Kuhn, Director Emeritus of the Department Molecular Systems Assembly, Max-Planck-Institute. https