"The Bio Code" -Is Life Written Into the Laws of Physics?

A recent mathematical analysis says that life as we know it is written into the laws of reality.  DNA is built from a set of twenty amino acids - the first ten of those can create simple prebiotic life, and now it seems that those ten are thermodynamically destined to occur wherever they can.

For those unfamiliar with thermodynamics, it's the Big Brother of all energy equations and science itself.  You can apply quantum mechanics at certain scales, and Newtonian mechanics work at the right speeds, but if Thermodynamics says something then everyone listens.  An energy analysis by Professors Pudritz and Higgs of McMaster University shows that the first ten amino acids are likely to form at relatively low temperatures and pressures, and the calculated odds of formation match the concentrations of these life-chemicals found in meteorite samples.

They also match those in simulations of early Earth, and most critically, those simulations were performed by other people.  The implications are staggering: good news for anyone worried about how we're alone, and bad news for anyone who demands some kind of "Designer" to put life together - it seems that physics can assemble the organic jigsaw all by itself, thank you very much, and has probably done so throughout space since the beginning of everything.

The study indicates that you don't need a miracle to arrive at the chemical cocktail for early life, just a decently large asteroid with the right components.  That's all.  The entire universe could be stuffed with life, from the earliest prebiotic protein-a-likes to fully DNAed descendants.  The path from one to the other is long, but we've had thirteen and a half billion years so far and it's happened at least once.

The other ten amino acids aren't as easy to form, but they'll still turn up - and the process of "stepwise evolution" means that once the simpler systems work, they can grab the rarer "epic drops" of more sophisticated chemicals as they occur - kind of a World of Lifecraft except you literally get a life when you play.  And once even the most sophisticated structure is part of a replicating organism, there's plenty to go round.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Humans and Aliens might share DNA roots http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/thermodynamino.html

Comments

[julian]

but what I would like to know is, where did the meteorite come from?

[Joseph Smith]

Space is full of meteors. The origin of everything is still out there to discover, but if this is correct, it would explain some of lifes origins.

[AustinB]

Yes Julian, where did it come from? Where did GOD come from? No matter which way you go, science, or religion, something has to have always been there. I'm just picking the one that the guys with 180 IQs side with.

[Mark]

"DNA is built from a set of twenty amino acids - "
What?

Sorry but this piece makes little sense.

"The implications are staggering"
No. If the 'first twenty' aa's are more likely to form due to thermodynamics, then it is not surprising that they are more likely to be found wherever we look.

[Simon]

Such marvelous creations... by accident? Made me feel great, fantastic, happy... Can´t be only one God (... just a random thought) Staggering truths all around.

Simon says

[Simon]

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Need peanuts $.

Simon says

[Schlofster]

The faithful will now say (a non sequitur) that God wrote life into the laws of the universe:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html

Can't reason with the unreasonable!

[Dr.Earth]

According to this article, if we send something with the right ingredients to mars, Mars will have direct Tv in a few million years (meaning life will form and perhaps intelligence such as our own). This makes sense theoretically but why is there nothing on other planets in our solar system? So either the theory is wrong or we are not being told the truth about Nasa's findings.

[Schlofster]

Dr.Earth - you fall into the fallacy of false alternatives (http://www.philosophicalsociety.com/Logical%20Fallacies.htm#false-alternatives) - why do you not consider the possibility that life exists on other planets in the solar system, but we have not yet been able to find it?

[Klatu]

Not only will life be found to occur in many places in the universe. The really startling thing is that life on other planets will be very familiar to us. Just as an atom of hydrogen is the same everywhere. Life is life is life is life... everywhere you look. Biology doesn't have a special pass to exist in some special exemption bubble. We will find the same range of life forms on other planets. Strange some of them might turn out to be, they will not be outside the range seen on our own planet.

[Klatu]

and yes... as much as some herds of nerds might like to make fun of Star Trek... the (what we would call) higher life forms will be humanoid. Stephen Jay Gould has been dead wrong all along. Evolution and the universe itself doesn't go headlong into oblivion willy nilly. There is a set number of possibilities that combine to trick us into thinking that the universe is of unimaginable complexity. But that is only because our percepton is so limited. The sad truth is, the universe is indeed simple and comprehensible. Life as we are now finding with every advance in nanotech is trivially simple at the root of it. Right about now we're realizing that being a goldfish is not so bad after all. Every spin around the little jar is a novel experience... how wonderful!

Oh and yes we will find that some aliens might indeed speak a language very close to some of our own.

[John]

I don't know very much, but this finding seems to me to not mean very much to either side of the created/uncreated argument. Evolutionists can easily argue that life needed no designer or creator because it was just a very physically viable possibility, and that's not even a new argument for them: the very existence of life has always been supportive evidence for that argument, since if the building blocks of life were not the most likely chemical combinations, life probably wouldn't exist. Nor will this imply any real new arguments for creationists: they have always argued that God specifically designed the earth to sustain life, using such long-known and simple facts as the position of the earth to the sun. If the earth were merely 1 million miles closer or farther from the sun, life as we know it would not exist.
Frankly, then, I dispute the above article's claim that the implications could be staggering. I've listened to either side present various arguments, very well-formed and persuasive, and always ended up confused as to why they even tried... I've never seen or heard of anyone changing their beliefs on the existence of God based on scientific evidence of creation. People choose to believe either what they've been taught or what will allow them to justify whatever lifestyle and mindset they've chosen.

[G]

I just wanted to point out a couple problems with this article, namely that DNA is formed from twenty amino acids. DNA is actually formed from four amino acids A, T, G and C. Proteins, on the other hand, are formed from primarily twenty amino acids, although there are many more amino acids that are not commonly used in the human body. With the crux of your argument not scientifically valid i find it difficult to believe the rest of your claims. Just my two cents.

[Dr.Earth]

Schlofster - I actually did consider that(life does exist in our solar system but we have not found it yet) but if all evidence is weighed in, according to this theory, life should not be that hard to find. Given the variables over a period of a billion years or so, life, according to this article, should not be hard to find. Therefore, since Nasa has sent rovers and such to planets in our solar system, life would have been found already. Hence, there is my argument that either this theory is wrong or Nasa is not telling us something. Given the people involved and the integrity of the research, scenario 2 seems much more likely. The theory is correct and information is being with held from the public.

This is done for many reasons, one of which being religion. It has been used since the beginning of man for political agenda. Life elsewhere challenges religion somewhat and the government does not want to undermine something that gives them control over the people.

[Dr.Earth]

To be honest, I think there is a little bit of both. This theory is somewhat flawed and information is being withheld from the public.

[DavidBodhi]

True enough. This information does nothing to affirm or deny the existence of God.

However, it also does not support the amino-acid-centric concept of life. There may be tens of thousands of life-forms that do NOT rely on amino acids. Just because some of the amino acids form very easily is no reason to conclude that ONLY amino acids can be building blocks of life.

That's silly.

[An Atheist who does fine w/o God]

You can gripe about Creationists all you want, but at least they're upfront: they're going to ignore science totally and talk about God instead. As opposed to science bloggers who tell you they're going to talk about science but then WRITE ABOUT GOD INSTEAD.

Maybe if you'd gone to church you'd know what 'preaching to the choir' means.

[Some Guy]

Dr. Earth, you obviously do not understand how thermodynamics actually works. At different temperatures different molecules and atoms combine to form unique compounds. The article is simply stating that at earth's surface temperature and pressure these 10 amino acids are more likely to form when certain atoms are present (on Mars or anywhere else in our solar system this would not be the case).

[Mastodon]

The author claims that this study discounts belief in a designer. He is wrong b/c (1) we do not know the first cause of everything. The Big Band theory is an explanatory option, yet one can still pursue causation beyond the BB. It's not an end-all. (2) Even if science recognizes a certain event as being internally caused that does not rule out a designer. A designer and this observation are not mutually exclusive. The most simple example of this is the divine Watchmaker of the Deists who sets the universe, all its physical laws and so forth, into motion then has no contact with it.

Scientists observe things, but they do not answer the questions of final cause as Aristotle originally hoped.

[Robert Nilsen]

Life wouldn't be here if there was no natural process to build the basic blocks (Amino acids) from smaller blocks (Atoms), which could be the building blocks of cells and so on. That is neither what the result is about.

The result is about how easy it is to make life's building blocks out of atoms, and thus it shows that life is somewhat aboundant. I would have been very surprised if earth was unique in that respect (and very sad).

Who made the laws of physics (and thermodynamics)? You can call it God or whatever, but it is not a person-like entity sitting on a cloud above your head and judging what is good and evil. That kind of God picture is dead long ago, and anyone with IQ above average can see it. If you really want to find the true meaning of the world, you have to find the truth behind nature. Even if it takes you thousands of years of hard experimental work, it is no excuse to give up and go back to your bible, koran or whatever idiotic manuscript madmen has produced.

[An Agnostic]

I'm not really sure what the author means by saying that DNA is made up of 20 amino acids, since that obviously is not the case. DNA on Earth encodes the production of proteins USING 20 amino acids, which is not at all the same thing. I do agree that this is an important finding though. I've certainly always believed that life had to exist elsewhere, because the probability of earth being the only suitable planet in the universe seems absurdly unlikely. What I've always wondered is what that life would be like. This finding suggests that it would most probably be similar to life on earth, (at least a molecular level.)

I doubt NASA would actually withold the information that they had discovered extraterrestrial life. Although many religious people would be displeased by it, it would be the discovery of a lifetime. It would legitimize all the spending that's ever been done in space. It would completely change people's view of the universe!

As to whether or not a god caused this, nobody could ever prove anything either way. Either god simply came into being and then created the universe, or the universe simply came into being. Neither explanation fits our understanding of the universe, because there's never an effect without a cause. Either explanation would be lacking the cause. This doesn't have to be a debate of religion's legitamacy. This find doesn't change any of the arguments either way. To all of you simply pursuing knowledge, I applaud you. I hope one day we have an answer.

[klatu]

Arguing whether God or nature created life is moronic. There is no conflict, and ultimately there is no reason. If there was a god then who made Him (capitalizing out of respect for believers). If we find the one who made him, then we would wonder who made that entity... and so on and so on ad infinitum. Science on the other hand doesn't have the answer either... and will never have the answer... for very obvious reasons. Ultimately where did all matter come from? If somebody dreamed it then who dreamed him. If it's only in our heads... then what's really outside our heads. In the end, the joke is on the beloved Mr. Spock. The only real thing is our emotions. What we think we experience... what we deal with directly are really the only things that should matter to us.

[YouStumblePoser]

THIS THIS THIS THIS

> You can gripe about Creationists all you want, but at least they're upfront: they're going to ignore science totally and talk about God instead. As opposed to science bloggers who tell you they're going to talk about science but then WRITE ABOUT GOD INSTEAD.

> Maybe if you'd gone to church you'd know what 'preaching to the choir' means.

> -- DavidBodhi

THAT THAT THAT

Stumbled to this post and was getting excited then you threw this atheist RAAAGE crap in there.

OST - The entire article is a troll? If so, props.

[Toohot]

This is an illogical extension of a hypothesis: "Given the variables over a period of a billion years or so, life, according to this article, should not be hard to find."

Because the idea is a frivolous one, no evidence is found - in fact, the extension is chosen solely for its lack of substantiation. The inventor uses the lack of evidence for the crafted extension as proof that the entire hypothesis is false: "Therefore, since Nasa has sent rovers and such to planets in our solar system, life would have been found already." That's just inexcusably poor thinking.

The article isn't trying to suggest that there are no inhospitable planets; the evidence so far would indicate that there are LOTS of places that don't support life. They're just saying that life on other planets might be more likely than we had previously thought, because it might be helped along by organic molecules' adherence to well-tested laws of physics rather than just on happenstance, as we generally assume. It is the influence of thermodynamics on the molecules that is the new information which needs to be explored and corroborated so we can gain new understanding and insight.

By all means critique the idea; that's good science. But critique the idea as it's presented, without adding in stuff that the author didn't put there.

[nevsky]

We are biological ~70 year lifespan entities evolved (the lucky ones in the 1st world) beyond our sensory capacity to be satisfied, and science now is "taming by naming"

Dark matter
Prions
Sheldrake (I applaud)
Cosmological Constant
Age of the Universe
HIV vectors

Be modest