Protocell Circus

Produced by Dr Rachel Armstrong and Michael Simon Toon - Dr Armstrong (senior TED fellow and UCL teaching fellow) created the protocells and footage in the laboratory at Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Post production, editing, sound and narrative by Toon.

Protocells could be the beginning of life on Earth, maybe even the birth of consciousness itself. They are cells with no DNA. These simple protocells are the result of a reaction between a few basic chemicals, (oil, salt and water) yet they exhibit complex life-like behaviors which seem to validate Aristotle's theory of "Spontaneous Generation" otherwise known as "abiogenesis" which was superseded by "germ theory" which was popularized by Louis Pasteur. "Germ theory" however never addressed how inanimate matter, first came to be life-like in nature.

Google searches for more information:
http://www.google.com/search?q=abiogenesis
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=primordial+soup
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=origins+of+life

Wired article on protocells:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t/

Word search for Protocells in wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocell

http://www.facebook.com/protocells
http://protocellcircus.com/
http://beforeDNA.com/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• protocell
• protocells
• origin of life
• protocel
• protocels
• philosophy

[wolfgangouille]

@5tonyvvvv 1. Absolutely ! AMINO ACIDS, not nucleotides, form peptides ;) Small peptides of 2 or 3 aa can form abiotically and they are very stable. Those could have been used as cofactors by early cells.

2. It's not because a complexe is irreducible NOW that it couldn't have evolved. Maybe in primitive cells, neither nucleic acids nor proteins were necessary !

3. and 4. I don't know what you are reffering to. Just try to see early life much more simpler than it is today !

[wolfgangouille]

@5tonyvvvv The concept of god is in so many ways clearly shown as a product of the human brain. I don't want to argue either, I already use too much ressources trying to understand how the universe REALLY is ;)

[wolfgangouille]

@5tonyvvvv Software codes and computers don't self replicate. Your affirmations are just words, you made that up. Polymerisation can happen even if entropically hydrolysis is favorised, just like two magnets spontanesoulsy assemble if you put them in a box and shake it. Noone ever said life and proteins formed by chance as they are TODAY. Please, I insist, try to understand what scientists say and mean with the theory of abiogenesis before you say those kinds of rubbish.

[wolfgangouille]

@5tonyvvvv Don't say impossible, everything is possible, it's just a matter of probability. Maybe at first the cells could use both enantiomers from the environment in a really poor way, before evolving the ability to produce those molecules by themselves. Also if at some point the enzymatic formation of building blocks became stereoselective, that would explain the exclusive presence of one form over the other and the adapatation of the whole cell to this particular form.

[5tonyvvvv]

@wolfgangouille 1. Nucleotides never just form polymers, peptides EVER!

2. Nectiodes are always taken from living cell's and Templates and Synthesizing machines are used to get the reactions going!!

3.Trained Chemists COPY and BORROW INFORMATION!!! It never just forms in test tubes!!! Also enzymes catalyze peptides which you dont have!!

4.How is is this undirected natural processes????

[5tonyvvvv]

@wolfgangouille I believe in GOD, if you dont thats fine. I dont want to argue.

[5tonyvvvv]

@wolfgangouille Intelligence is needed to create software code or assemble a computer! FAR MORE intelligence is needed for the assemblance of the first Cell and thereby DNA. A DNA code is far more complex in design than All the Worlds Softwares COMBINED!! Therefore we can deduce Intelligent DESIGN! Homochirality and hydrolysis would prevent life from ever starting! It is chemically and mathematically impossible for a single protein to form by chance!

[5tonyvvvv]

@wolfgangouille Homochirality is a disaster for naturalistic origins. All amino acids in proteins are 'LEFT-handed', while all sugars in DNA and RNA, and in the metabolic pathways, are 'RIGHT-handed'. Chirality!

A 50/50 mixture of left- and right-handed forms is called a racemate or racemic mixture!!. Which life can't use!! Its what we see in nature and in labs!

Life never came about by time chance natural processes! IMPOSSIBLE!!!

[wolfgangouille]

@5tonyvvvv So... protocells have nothing to do with origin of life. What do you think is best at explaining it then? Please answer I am really curious.

[Gormanmod]

@5tonyvvvv ...this is not an answer nor a rebuttal. This is you in denial.