James L
09-10-2006, 06:51 PM
...of the origin of life.
I came across the following in a short aricle by Joel Achenbach in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Biologist Harold Morowitz of George Mason University argues that our metabolism--the chemical reactions that allow cells to turn energy and atoms into biologically useful molecules--provides a long fossil record of Earrth life. Morowitz and collaborator Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute believe that a central set of chemical reactions has been in place since life's earliest moments about four billion years ago. These reactions involve just 11 small carbon molecules, such as citric and acetic acids, very ordinary stuff that would have been abundant on the young Earth.
Those 11 molecules could have played a role in other chemical reactions that led to the development of such biomolecules as amino acids, lipids, sugars, and eventually some kind of genetic molecule such as RNA. In other words, metabolism came first--before cells, before replication, before life as we commonly think of it.
Insofar as this theory may be substantiated, it would seem to provide support for the focus on metabolism as one of the key underpinnings of the PP/PPLP approach to nutrition. FWIW.
I came across the following in a short aricle by Joel Achenbach in the March 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Biologist Harold Morowitz of George Mason University argues that our metabolism--the chemical reactions that allow cells to turn energy and atoms into biologically useful molecules--provides a long fossil record of Earrth life. Morowitz and collaborator Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute believe that a central set of chemical reactions has been in place since life's earliest moments about four billion years ago. These reactions involve just 11 small carbon molecules, such as citric and acetic acids, very ordinary stuff that would have been abundant on the young Earth.
Those 11 molecules could have played a role in other chemical reactions that led to the development of such biomolecules as amino acids, lipids, sugars, and eventually some kind of genetic molecule such as RNA. In other words, metabolism came first--before cells, before replication, before life as we commonly think of it.
Insofar as this theory may be substantiated, it would seem to provide support for the focus on metabolism as one of the key underpinnings of the PP/PPLP approach to nutrition. FWIW.