On Sunday, May 29, 2022 at 4:30:18 PM UTC-4, Mitch Raemsch wrote:
Murray Gell Mann talked about emergence.
Where?
Did first life emerge like that.
There is too much speculation on this topic, too many incompatible definitions of "life" floating around.
What did Mann say about it?
Here is something that might interest people here. It's about as far back as paleontology
can take us at the present time, AFAIK:
"When photosynthesis began?"
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628944-500-captured-the-moment-photosynthesis-changed-the-world/
excerpt:
"In 2007, John Allen at Queen Mary, University of London, and William Martin at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany, suggested one scenario (Nature, doi.org/bs65kb). They believe that modern photosynthesis was born when early cyanobacteria by chance
floated into a watery environment rich in manganese, and quickly adapted to take advantage of the new source of electrons.
"Later, because manganese is a relatively scarce resource that can’t be tapped indefinitely, the cyanobacteria evolved a different strategy. They incorporated manganese directly into their photosynthetic structures and used it as a rechargeable battery:
draining it of its electrons, but allowing its supplies to be replenished by stealing electrons from another, more plentiful source – water."
I don't know how much earlier fossils can tell us about the emergence of life. Even this one may be a stretch.
Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Mathematics
University of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer --
https://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/
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