Science & Technology - Posted by Hannah Isom-Leeds on Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:16 - 1 Comment    
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Early ‘energizers’ powered prehistoric life

New research suggests a simple compound called pyrophosphite may have acted like nature's battery in powering early life forms. The findings are the first to suggest that pyrophosphite may have been relevant in the shift from basic chemistry to complex biology when life on earth began. (Credit: iStockphoto/modified)

U. LEEDS (UK)—A compound called pyrophosphite may have acted as the battery that energized primitive life forms, new research suggests.





There are several conflicting theories of how life on Earth emerged from inanimate matter billions of years ago—a process known as abiogenesis.

“It’s a chicken and egg question,” says lead researcher Terry Kee of the University of Leeds. “Scientists are in disagreement over what came first—replication, or metabolism. But there is a third part to the equation—and that is energy.”

All living things require a continual supply of energy in order to function. This energy is carried around our bodies within certain molecules, one of the best known being ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), which converts heat from the sun into a usable form for animals and plants.

At any one time, the human body contains just 250g of ATP—which would provide roughly the same amount of energy as a single AA battery. This ATP store is being constantly used and regenerated in cells via a process known as respiration, which is driven by natural catalysts called enzymes.

“You need enzymes to make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes,” explains Kee.

“The question is: Where did energy come from before either of these two things existed? We think that the answer may lie in simple molecules such as pyrophosphite, which is chemically very similar to ATP, but has the potential to transfer energy without enzymes.”

The findings, published in the journal Chemical Communications, are the first to suggest that pyrophosphite may have been relevant in the shift from basic chemistry to complex biology when life on earth began.

The key to the battery-like properties of both ATP and pyrophosphite is an element called phosphorus, which is essential for all living things. Not only is phosphorus the active component of ATP, it also forms the backbone of DNA and is important in the structure of cell walls.

But despite its importance to life, it is not fully understood how phosphorus first appeared in our atmosphere. One theory is that it was contained within the many meteorites that collided with the Earth billions of years ago.

“Phosphorus is present within several meteoritic minerals and it is possible that this reacted to form pyrophosphite under the acidic, volcanic conditions of early Earth,” Kee adds.

More news from the University of Leeds: www.leeds.ac.uk/news

Please wait

1 Comment

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Miroslav Provod
Dec 8, 2010 3:05

Physics during the age of megaliths
Over more than twenty years, I have realized hundreds of experiments, which were mostly motivated by trying to uncover the reasons and causes of not always convincingly explained working activities of ancient civilizations. In these experiments, I came to the conclusion that many activities of ancient prehistoric cultures were clearly motivated by the desire to exploit knowledge about the attributes of static electricity. Even in academic publications, I found no information on the range of the found properties of static electricity. It cannot be therefore excluded that they have never been published. For this reason, I admit it might be an entirely new knowledge.

Four probably yet unpublished properties of static electricity showed on the theme of implementation of many megalithic and religious structures. Many often seemingly useless construction activities of our ancestors could not be convincingly and logically explained without the connection with these new findings of the properties of static electricity. Historians and archaeologists have often helped themselves out by saying that the motivation for constructing many buildings in our history was based solely on a “ritual” or “calendar reason”. All researchers and scientists who “dared” linking knowledge of ancient cultures with modern knowledge of the physical energies were often ridiculed by generally accepted capacities and rendered as being textbook ignorants. The four properties of static electricity introduced are however far from a total explanation of all yet difficult to explain mysteries of our history. In some cases, the new knowledge about the properties of matter in connection with a charge of static electricity provides only partial explanation to the historical mysteries, which suggests that there can be many more unidentified properties of static electricity.

There is no doubt that there is an incorrect interpretation of certain parts of history in connection with the explanation of the motives for constructing many complex, but even the simplest of old buildings. It is therefore necessary to examine the question of logical reasons for building the constructions in context with new physical knowledge, which demonstrates that “knowledge” of ancient and extinct cultures surpassed the knowledge of modern history. The “ritual dogmas” will need to be replaced by new energy knowledge. This will create a real picture of the evolution of world cultures as well as a “springboard” for further research in some historical periods.

However, there are the already mentioned “scientific” obstacles that discourage many that are interested in modern research. These obstacles that psychologically bind the thinking of many researchers that are eager for truth are the skeptics. The skeptics, in an effort to stand out, which they cannot achieve in a different field of science, serve as scientific inquisitors. Being a skeptic is very easy as skeptics always respond to new ideas by saying “Everything that cannot be put in context with known facts cannot be assessed.” They refuse to respect the fact that all new findings were found behind the edge of known facts in most cases.

I was saddened, for example, when the skeptics in the Czech Republic attached an ‘erratic boulder’ to Erich von Daniken. Even if Daniken did not bring any revolutionary ideas in his work, he would have done more for the promotion of history than all the Czech inquisitional skeptics combined. Daniken inspired hundreds of thousands of researchers around the world by his extensive work – thousands of them chose their field of work due to his exploratory study. And last but not least, after centuries of neglect many historical monuments that were described by Daniken are now cracking under the pressure of curious tourists. Daniken fully described the megalithic culture in his writings.
Literary works by Erich Daniken are well above the writings of other authors, who constantly repeat pieces of information that have already been published many times. I have studied all the writings of Erich Daniken and I can say that I gained more knowledge about the megaliths from his literature than I would have received by personal visits to the places described. There are more such cases, which I will not address here. I regard the ‘erratic boulder’ given to Erich Daniken as the worst injustice.

Skeptics could not have objected to the way Mr. Daniken describes the megalithic culture, but they likely just disagreed with his opinion that it could not have been created by a ‘textbook type’ civilization and that ancient cultures received the information from some advanced cultures from outer space. And here is the discord, skeptics recognize the current interpretation of history, Mr. Daniken, as well as many logically thinking people, does not. It does not matter where the ancient cultures received the information. The fact is that they must have obtained it somewhere. The view of Mr. Daniken that ancient cultures may have obtained the information from space cannot be assessed in any other way then as a creative idea. Any doubts about the astronauts from other planets can encourage others to think about other explanations. The essence of the literary work of Mr. Daniken is not just getting the source of information, but it is the whole megalithic culture. Reacting to the opinion of Mr. Daniken by granting him an ‘erratic boulder’ seems amateur and inappropriate. People expect from scientists that they will scientifically and properly reason their decision.

If skeptics think that people used to build thousands of megaliths all over the world for ritual and calendar purposes (as is currently mentioned in history) they only compromise themselves in the same way as archaeologists do. Unless it is explained what tools were used to machine the hardest diorite rock, unless it is experimentally demonstrated that it is possible to transport a block of rock weighing one thousand tons to a distance of two kilometers solely by the use of pulling and ropes, unless it is explained how people communicated with each other when they built the same types of megalithic structures around the world the account of Mr. Daniken cannot be clearly and categorically questioned. In this case, the purposely formulated assumption proposed by the skeptics by granting Erich von Daniken an ‘erratic boulder’ stated exactly the opposite. They reached a phase where public begun to question statements given by the skeptics.

The new knowledge about static electricity resulting from the research of megaliths seems like a great hint not only for the research of ancient cultures but also for several other fields. In addition, we can expect further findings of the unknown properties of static electricity.

I remind the importance of the four attributes of static electricity, which I describe in dozens of articles at http://www.miroslavprovod.com.
1 – Each material has a charge with three energy components (aura, zones, and interzones).
2 – When auras of two or more charges come into contact they merge into one common charge with common energy components.
3 – By merging charges into a joint charge, there is a gradual equalizing of their energetic potentials.
4 – During the equalizing of energetic potentials there is also a transfer of chemical properties.

October 2010
Miroslav Provod

Leave a Comment

Comment

Research news from leading universities

Daily E-News


Browse By School

Follow Futurity

RSS feedsFacebookTwitter

Week's Most Discussed

  • Loading...

Media Partners

Alltop logo Pulse logo Flipboard logo Visual News logo The Conversation logo