Month: September 2022

LAWS OF PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY. “Physico-chemical constraints might be at the origin of the structure of biological metabolic networks. In addition, simple metallic molecules that were likely found in the prebiotic environment can act as catalysts for reactions that depend on sophisticated enzymes in modern cells.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

UNKNOWABLE UNKNOWNS. “To the question ‘Where did these sugars come from?’, we can only speculate based on the prior literature, which leaves the issue essentially open.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

PRIMAL BATHTUB. “The notion of the prebiotic Archean ocean is intriguing, particularly when considering the problem of concentration of the solutes.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

WARM WET POND. “It is indeed unlikely that life started in such conditions of extreme dilution of a few molecules in the prebiotic ocean, and some form of compartmentalization might be considered to explain how the necessary local metabolite concentration was achieved.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

KEY ISSUE. “Another important question, which is otherwise rarely considered in the literature, relates to the role of self‐replication mechanisms as opposed to reactions under thermodynamic control.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

SUPERFLUOUS LUXURY? “Indeed, there is no need, in principle, of self‐replication, when a given product is continuously re‐made because it is the most stable reaction product—this is the case of all reactions under thermodynamic control.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

COMPARTMENTS. “Related to this issue is the fact that thermodynamically less favored molecules can in fact accumulate as well if products are separated from the catalyst, for example, by inclusion into protocell vesicles.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

FASCINATING POSSIBILITY. “Thus, it cannot be excluded that a primordial ‘reversed’ glycolysis (that is, a primordial ‘gluconeogenesis’) could have contributed to carbon fixation or facilitated the formation of the complex sugar phosphates required for the assembly of RNA and other biological molecules.” https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this incredibly short but powerful article that pulls together some of the key ignored questions about the origin of self-sustaining and self-replicating metabolic pathways assembled into autonomous organisms, and proposes a hypothesis for the self-similarity of these pathways across many species. A remarkable article by a remarkable man. https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1002/msb.20145351 View in LinkedIn

FINLAND, THE HAPPY COUNTRY. “Children are scaffolded to make meanings, instead of giving right answers, to discuss and to show their conceptions (instead of listening and memorizing) and finally to be creative and design their own learning, instead of following teachers guidance.” https://lnkd.in/dW8fMht View in LinkedIn