Douglas Adams Was Right! The Answer Is 42!!!!!!

[stromboli]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-115#.U060No29K0c

"Life took root more than four billion years ago on our nascent Earth, a wetter and harsher place than now, bathed in sizzling ultraviolet rays. What started out as simple cells ultimately transformed into slime molds, frogs, elephants, humans and the rest of our planet's living kingdoms. How did it all begin?

A new study from researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the Icy Worlds team at NASA's Astrobiology Institute, based at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., describes how electrical energy naturally produced at the sea floor might have given rise to life. While the scientists had already proposed this hypothesis -- called "submarine alkaline hydrothermal emergence of life" -- the new report assembles decades of field, laboratory and theoretical research into a grand, unified picture.

According to the findings, which also can be thought of as the "water world" theory, life may have begun inside warm, gentle springs on the sea floor, at a time long ago when Earth's oceans churned across the entire planet. This idea of hydrothermal vents as possible places for life's origins was first proposed in 1980 by other researchers, who found them on the sea floor near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Called "black smokers," those vents bubble with scalding hot, acidic fluids. In contrast, the vents in the new study -- first hypothesized by scientist Michael Russell of JPL in 1989 -- are gentler, cooler and percolate with alkaline fluids. One such towering complex of these alkaline vents was found serendipitously in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2000, and dubbed the Lost City."


"As is the case with all advanced life forms, enzymes are the key to making chemical reactions happen. In our ancient oceans, minerals may have acted like enzymes, interacting with chemicals swimming around and driving reactions. In the water world theory, two different types of mineral "engines" might have lined the walls of the chimney structures.

"These mineral engines may be compared to what's in modern cars," said Russell.

"They make life 'go' like the car engines by consuming fuel and expelling exhaust. DNA and RNA, on the other hand, are more like the car's computers because they guide processes rather than make them happen."

One of the tiny engines is thought to have used a mineral known as green rust, allowing it to take advantage of the proton gradient to produce a phosphate-containing molecule that stores energy. The other engine is thought to have depended on a rare metal called molybdenum. This metal also is at work in our bodies, in a variety of enzymes. It assists with the transfer of two electrons at a time rather than the usual one, which is useful in driving certain key chemical reactions.

"We call molybdenum the Douglas Adams element," said Russell, explaining that the atomic number of molybdenum is 42, which also happens to be the answer to the "ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" in Adams' popular book, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Russell joked, "Forty-two may in fact be one answer to the ultimate question of life!"

The team's origins of life theory applies not just to Earth but also to other wet, rocky worlds."

This is from NASA, so I'd call it reliable.  Take THAT, Creationists! 

[Jason78]

That is some awesome research right there. 

And more reason to take a trip to visit Europa.

[Berati]

“For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Solitary]

Is that 42 degrees from Bacon? Solitary

[Shiranu]

Proof of god, obviously.

[PickelledEggs]

DON'T PANIC

Sent via your mom

[The Skeletal Atheist]

Hopefully soon enough we'll be able to have a workable, lab testable theory for the abiotic origin of life. We've made amino acids, now we just need to make life using the chemicals and conditions present on early earth and we can close a particularly annoying gap.

[stromboli]

Hopefully soon enough we'll be able to have a workable, lab testable theory for the abiotic origin of life. We've made amino acids, now we just need to make life using the chemicals and conditions present on early earth and we can close a particularly annoying gap.

I saw an "annoying gap" the other day wearing a pair of yoga pants. I drive my wife to some places because she is reluctant to drive where there might be lots of traffic, like busy stores. I sit in the car and observe what enters and leaves. Sometimes you see things that make you question the logic of human existence. Yoga pants all by themselves represent both the apex and the nadir of human experience.