Saw this weeks ago and decide to share it with gather eventually:
Last Universal Common Ancestor More Complex Than Previously Thought
It is referred to as LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Â Scientists don't know much about this postulated ancestor of all life on earth. Many suggest that LUCA was little more than a crude assemblage of molecular parts, a chemical soup out of which evolution gradually constructed more complex forms. Some scientists still debate whether it was even a cell.
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Comments: 33
I believe you should post it as well on Alien Life by Simon P.
I did not think of putting a link on Simon P's post. I might just do that.
Carl Woese has even gone further in his papers and explains it much more eloquently than I can.
Carl Woese's hypothesis is more logical Gilbert. The chemical data means that one should propose that they were very different from each other.
LUCA was also into gene swapping, and on a much larger scale than what we observe in modern bacteria
gene swapping was once more important than inheritance from parent to offspring, and that early archaea, bacteria and eukaryotes each emerged independently from a ‘sea’ of gene transfer8
It’s not clear how his claims could be tested, but they are certainly food for thought — if he’s right there never was a single LUCA, but more of a community of genes loosely associated with cells.
Quoted from this article: What is the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA)?
The universal ancestor, Carl Woese
"The universal ancestor is not an entity, not a thing. It is a process characteristic of a particular evolutionary stage."
First, if conditions on the early earth could allow life to begin, those conditions would probably allow it to happen trillions of times in trillions of places so it would not have happened just the one time. So there would not have been one common ancestor individual "organism" but many which would have been the same but originating in many places.
Second, I find it hard to believe that only one path to RNA / DNA exists in the chemistry we are familiar with. I would expect that RNA was produced in several different processes. This would create multiple "ancestors" for the life forms we see around us.
Third, there may be life forms on earth which are not of the RNA / DNA pattern that we have not yet identified. But that's just a possibility and not something on which I would gamble.
I'll put the link to Carl Woese's essay here also so that you will receive an email notification Larry.
The universal ancestor, Carl Woese
The ancestor cannot have been a particular organism, a single organismal lineage. It was communal, a loosely knit, diverse conglomeration of primitive cells that evolved as a unit, and it eventually developed to a stage where it broke into several distinct communities, which in their turn become the three primary lines of descent. The primary lines, however, were not conventional
lineages. Each represented a progressive consolidation of the corresponding community into a smaller number of more complex cell types, which ultimately developed into the ancestor(s) of that organismal domain. The universal ancestor
is not an entity, not a thing. It is a process characteristic of a particular evolutionary stage.
I don't see what your 5:05 comment has to do with my "Third" point above. The life forms / process he refers to is RNA / DNA at work. My third point refers to some possible other life processes that do not involve RNA or DNA.
Although I disagree with it I will not debate it because it is not illogical.
What I would like for our scientists to deterrmine is how was the first atom formed with its magnetic and electical properties? Namely, how did matter form in an empty Universe? It is this one question that will always lead to the unknowlable, incomprehensible, and mysterious God. Is there a force or energy that wills itself into the formation of matter that eventually become stars and planets that allows the evolution of consciousness in higher life forms; life that turns its thoughts towards that force or energy that inltiated the "beginning" of life?
☀★¸¸.☆.¸¸ . ✶*¨*. ¸ .✫*¨*.¸¸.✶*¸¸.☆.¸¸ . ☀★☀★¸¸.☆.¸¸ . ✶*¨*.
Thanks for sharing at MAY I MAKE A POINT? Have a good day!
Thank you for sharing with the Gather Library