RE: Ask a biologist
June 5, 2015 at 1:00 am
(This post was last modified: June 5, 2015 at 1:15 am by nihilistcat.)
(May 23, 2015 at 4:36 pm)whateverist Wrote: Exactly how did something come from nothing across the inorganic/organic divide?
Sorry for the late reply .... but our early atmosphere contained gases such as methane, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur, chlorine, nitrogen, small amounts of oxygen (from UV breakdown of water molecules), etc., along with the minerals we see today. Conditions were much different than they are today (extreme volcanic activity, volcanic lightning storms, warmer temperatures than we see today, etc.). Experiments which approximated these conditions (in a laboratory) have shown how organic chemicals can form from inorganic chemicals in this type of environment. Complex organic molecules could have also originated in outer space (many organic molecules have detected in space e.g. pyrimidine has been found in meteorites, numerous types of organic molecules have been detected in distant cloud and star formations using spectroscopy, and recent astrobiological experiments have created complex organic molecules in a laboratory under outer space conditions).
(June 3, 2015 at 5:13 am)Aractus Wrote:(May 22, 2015 at 5:19 pm)francismjenkins Wrote: For many reasons. I view biology as the science with the most powerful near term potential. I've lost many good friends and family members to things like cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, etc. I've seen many people I care about suffer from things like alcoholism. And as a skeptic, I've always believed that science is our only hope to cure disease, live longer and better lives, solve intractable problems like global warming, etc., so I just can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing.
So what is your solution to global warming?
Not purely a biology problem (obviously), but since the draconian cuts in emissions that would be required to prevent bad things from happening are about as likely as jesus floating down from the heavens ... I'm pretty sure we'll be forced to sequester carbon. A multitude of ways this could be done. A really interesting recent experiment at Columbia created artificial trees that can suck up 1000 times more CO2 than regular trees (although we then have to figure out what to do with all that carbon, but there's a variety of different approaches on the drawing board that we may be able to use to bury all that carbon).
