are protein-like molecules formed inorganically from amino acids. Some theories of abiogenesis propose that proteinoids were a precursor to the first living cells.The inorganic polymerization of amino acids into proteins through the formation of peptide bonds was thought to occur only at temperatures over 140°C. However, the biochemist Sidney Walter Fox and his co-workers discovered that phosphoric acid acted as a catalyst for this reaction. They were able to form protein-like chains from a mixture of 18 common amino acids at only 70°C in the presence of phosphoric acid,......
"Proteinoids, or thermal proteins, are protein-like molecules formed inorganically from amino acids. Some theories of abiogenesis propose that proteinoids were a precursor to the first living cells.
The inorganic polymerization of amino acids into proteins through the formation of peptide bonds was thought to occur only at temperatures over 140°C. However, the biochemist Sidney Walter Fox and his co-workers discovered that phosphoric acid acted as a catalyst for this reaction. They were able to form protein-like chains from a mixture of 18 common amino acids at only 70°C in the presence of phosphoric acid, and dubbed these protein-like chains proteinoids. Fox later found proteinoids similar to those he had created in his laboratory in lava and cinders from Hawaiian volcanic vents and determined that the amino acids present polymerized due to the heat of escaping gases and lava. Other catalysts have since been found; one of them, amidinium carbodiimide, is formed in primitive Earth experiments and is effective in dilute aqueous solutions.
When present in certain concentrations in aqueous solutions, proteinoids form small structures called microspheres or protocells. This is because some of the amino acids incorporated into proteinoid chains are more hydrophobic than others, and so proteinoids cluster together like droplets of oil in water. Many argue that these are not themselves alive in the traditional sense, but these structures exhibit many of the characteristics of cells accepted as living cells:
1. a film-like outer wall.
2. osmotic swelling and shrinking.
3. budding.
4. binary fission (dividing into two daughter microspheres).
5. streaming movement of internal particles."
Of course a cell divides to reproduce; there is also reproduction in the world of viruses, but that is because the virus (a non-living thing) uses a host cell to reproduce.
One of the major troubles with abiogenesis is the cell wall. So far, all attempts to create a living cell have required that the researchers evacuate an already-living cell of its contents, and fill it with their new creation. They have not yet been able to show how a complete and functioning cell wall could have come about by any natural means, lightning strike or primordial soup or whatever.
When creating amino acids, they must be made in an oxygen-free atmosphere in the lab, whereas life on earth is oxygen-dependent.
There is also the problem of the meteor bombardment of Earth, which should have wiped out all living things at the very time when supporters of the abiogenesis theory claim that this early life was blossoming.
I don't base anything on the religious angle of the Christian community, my thoughts are independent of them. To be fair, scientists are working hard on making abiogenesis work, and some feel that the cell wall problem can be solved with lipid compounds.
I'd say, keep watching the news and see if the major stumbling blocks have been somehow surmounted, and someone comes up with a good answer to how life could have been created, and more importantly, sustained, in an almost-uninhabitable earth.
