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Abiogenesis: The Second Data Point?
Posted on March 2, 2021 by Alan Fox
Will Perserverance find it on Mars?
Abiogenesis, the question of the origin of life on Earth, is a fascinating one and on current information we only have one data point on which to base hypotheses. The facts are that life exists on Earth in amazing variety in many different niches from the coldest, darkest oceans to the driest deserts. Yet that life in all its diversity shares much in common.
With few and very interesting exceptions, the genetic code—the way information that terrestrial organisms use to function, grow and reproduce is stored—is shared across all extant species (and in extinct species where DNA is still recoverable). I know of no other plausible explanation for this than life's diversity radiates from a common ancestor. So far direct fossil evidence takes life back at least 3.75 billion years and molecular phylogeny suggests an even earlier date for the universal common ancestor. It is reasonable to infer that a molten Earth was sterile and that life based on carbon and water could not have existed on this planet before it was cool enough for water to condense on its surface.
So we know life on Earth began around 4 billion years ago but we do not know how. There are religious explanations: divine creation. Life could have begun elsewhere and arrived on Earth embedded in material that transported it. Life could have begun by some natural process in a favoured location, Darwin's
…warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity etcetera present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes…
or perhaps more plausibly in the vortex of a hydrothermal vent (some of the earliest fossils have been found in hydrothermal vent debris dated to 4 billion years ago).
We don't lack for hypotheses regarding abiogenesis. The Wikipedia article on abiogenesis lists many references to primary sources. What we lack is further evidence to allow us to better choose between hypotheses. Until now!
Is life unique to Earth? Is Earth the only place in the vastness of the observable universe and beyond that living organisms exist or have ever existed? We have learned a lot about elsewhere just from the electromagnetic radiation that arrives from beyond Earth and we have established that exoplanets orbiting other stars are common in our galaxy. Humans have visited our own Moon and brought back rock and soil samples that indicate the Moon is—and always has been—sterile. But NASA and the USSR during the cold war years of the sixties and seventies sent probes to Mars with the Mars Global Surveyor (launched in 1996 and continuing to function until 2006) producing a spectacularly detailed survey of the Martian surface, indicating features that could best be explained by water erosion. Could our nearest planetary neighbour once have supported life? Only by landing a probe on Mars could we begin to answer that question.
The first successful deployment of an unmanned vehicle was Sojourner from the Pathfinder mission launched in 1996. Its success encouraged and informed later missions, Curiosity (which is still operating) and the latest unmanned vehicle, Perserverance.
The hope is to use another unmanned vehicle as yet unlaunched to recover the rock samples prepared by Persereverance. This new vehicle will then deliver them to a lauch vehicle intended to deliver the samples to a satellite (European, whoopee, what could possibly go wrong) and eventually to land on Earth in 2031. Then we shall have our second data point.
Possible result Conclusion
Mars is sterile Life on Earth is unique hypothesis strengthened
Molecules closely related to life on Earth Panspermia, common source for life on Earth and Mars
Evidence of life unrelated to that found on Earth Life evolved separately on Mars, so life is likely to be teeming across the universe
Something else ?
Maybe we will not need to wait until samples can be recovered and brought back to Earth. Perserverance is also tasked with "seeking signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs of life over time".
Unless Perserverance finds signs that can be unequivocally interpreted as evidence of past life, we have perhaps another ten years for those samples to return to Earth and for us to examine the evidence for our second data point. Fingers crossed.
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43 thoughts on "Abiogenesis: The Second Data Point?"
Robert Byers
on March 3, 2021 at 1:29 am said:
No. No life on mars or in mars rocks. the only reason life is inprinted in rocks is from great forces squeezing it there. its impossible to put biology inprint on rocks. it doesn't happen today. Indeed the ROCKS were only turned to rocks by the same mechanism that inprinted the biology. VER very special events. Common on earth because of the unique great Noahs flood and minor later events.
If making bacteria is that easy then why can't smart humanity do it witrh raw material in a lab/ How can mars do it? No execuse. If that easy then step one and two should be done in the labs as we speak.
Evolutionism and all rejection of god is just worthless speculation of humanity who don't prove anything. Its truly not intelligent for them unless the show real evidence.
More than 20 years ago, there was an article about what looked like fossilized imprints with chemical activity attributable to life in a meteorite from Mars. I don't know if it was discredited later, or if nothing else has happened since, and the enthusiasm just evaporated for lack of further news.
(Now the ear worm is of an oldie and very danceable Cuban rhythm.)
Entropy: I don't know if it was discredited later, or if nothing else has happened since, and the enthusiasm just evaporated for lack of further news.
My brief and superficial research suggests that remote "robot" experiments have their limits and results so far have been inconclusive. Bringing back samples for human experimenters to look at will, I hope, result in more definitive answers. Or we wait for humans to report back from Mars.
Mars has had its share of wishful thinking!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canal
Entropy,
Those meteorite samples have been reexamined.
https://www.space.com/33690-allen-hills-mars-meteorite-alien-life-20-years.html
Robert Byers: No life on mars or in mars rocks.
You may be right, Robert, but so far the evidence is inconclusive. Would it be a problem for your world-view if life were found to have existed on Mars?
CharlieM
on March 3, 2021 at 2:15 pm said:
I've heard that someone suggested we should make anything we leave on other planets biodegradable so that it will disappear and not litter the place. Maybe they know something we don't! 🙂
Alan Fox: You may be right, Robert, but so far the evidence is inconclusive. Would it be a problem for your world-view if life were found to have existed on Mars?
Whatever a world view means it is so impossible for life to be otherthen on earth that it mighty seriously question biblical presumptions or would perfectly.
Nothing there. No fun I know.
Robert Byers: Whatever a world view means it is so impossible for life to be otherthen on earth that it mighty seriously question biblical presumptions or would perfectly.
I have to wonder what language this post must have been mistranslated from. But still, science fiction authors occasionally posit life so utterly alien that we wouldn't recognize it, or might not consider it "alive", or would otherwise not fit our concept of life. How sophisticated would any self-aware digital entity have to be, before we'd consider it to be alive? Must life be biological? How close are we to a proposed singularity, where computer programs can create smarter programs, which in turn create smarter programs, and digital intelligence explodes exponentially?
Joe Felsenstein
These particular rocks from Mars may not have signs of life, but they are very likely to actually be from Mars. Others can be found among meteors that fall onto Antarctic glaciers and are swept into particular areas along the edge of the glacier and can be collected there. Mars seems to have cooled down before Earth did (it is smaller, plus farther from the sun). And rocks do get blasted off Mars and get to Earth. Life could have originated there and then spread to Earth. That has one unfortunate implication — if we find signs of past (or examples of present) life on Mars, it may not be OOL 2.0. It may only be OOL 1.1. Related to life on earth, not an independent origin, though very fascinating for being possibly an earlier diverging lineage. For OOL 2.0 we may have to go farther, to moons of Jupiter or some such.
How close are we to a proposed singularity, where computer programs can create smarter programs, which in turn create smarter programs, and digital intelligence explodes exponentially?
It would need to replicate 2-for-1 to increase exponentially! That's the heart of biology: 1 DNA molecule becoming two identical ones. It's not enough for linear 'improvement' to take place; to mimic biology, it needs to spread. It is this – despite the robo-denials we see routinely in these here parts – that gives the conditions for evolution, by differentials in the net rate of spread of different variants. It's also this characteristic that makes me, despite sound chemical counterargument, continue to favour 'RNA world' as the likely precursor state.
Flint: Must life be biological?
Do you mean are there general physical restaints on how life could be constructed? If living things elsewhere have to obey the same laws of physics and chemistry, I guess so — if we assume life has to be chemical. All life we know revolves around carbon. Could silicon, with similar properties (to an extent) replace carbon? At the most fundamental, can we assume that however arranged, living things must exploit an energy source to maintain organisation and resist equilibrium with its environment. We don't know. We need another data point.
Allan Miller: …'RNA world' as the likely precursor state.
Could there have been a precursor to the precursor?
OK, so you see there are implications. I guess you don't need to prepare just yet for how to deal with them if they turn up. 😉
Joe Felsenstein: That has one unfortunate implication — if we find signs of past (or examples of present) life on Mars, it may not be OOL 2.0. It may only be OOL 1.1.
But it could also suggest life might have come from elsewhere and seeded both Mars and then Earth. I can hardly wait. Ten years will fly by!
on March 4, 2021 at 11:00 am said:
Flint: How sophisticated would any self-aware digital entity have to be, before we'd consider it to be alive?
Quite irrelevant. If it is incapable of reproduction, growth and development it's not alive.
Yes, by definition.
All pedantry aside: We tend to treat conscious and alive as synonyms, because the only conscious beings we know are animals (including humans). The vast majority of living beings is not conscious though. Vice versa I don't see any good reason to suppose that consciousness is restricted to organic life forms, in principle.
Corneel: The vast majority of living beings is not conscious though.
(Playing Devil's advocate) unless we have an agreed definition of consciousness, what is and what is not conscious is hard to categorize and is there a binary choice and sharp line? What about "run and tumble" strategies in flagellated bacteria? Navigating towards food or away from toxins requires a minimal awareness of the immediate surroundings.
Alan Fox: unless we have an agreed definition of consciousness, what is and what is not conscious is hard to categorize and is there a binary choice and sharp line?
I do not know. I am just following the general procedure of "if it behaves like it is aware of stuff then it is probably conscious". That naturally limits my candidates to things that display behaviour.
Alan Fox: What about "run and tumble" strategies in flagellated bacteria? Navigating towards food or away from toxins requires a minimal awareness of the immediate surroundings.
No, it doesn't. If I am not mistaken bacterial chemotaxis is controlled by molecular feedback mechanisms. Awareness requires, to the best of our knowledge, a nervous system. Brains and all that.
Corneel: Awareness requires, to the best of our knowledge, a nervous system. Brains and all that.
But does it? We only have one data point. I mean are we limited to the level of imagination of early Startrek episodes? Aliens limited to who could fit into a suit and wear prosthetics. I'm not sure we have enough imagination regarding how alien life might exist in structure and function and in what environments.
ETA we should try to avoid anthropomorphism. Look what it has done for Charlie. 😳
Alan Fox: But does it? We only have one data point.
No idea. That's the reason why I am open to consciousness outside of organic life forms.
Corneel: Quite irrelevant. If it is incapable of reproduction, growth and development it's not alive.
I don't know if we're communicating here. I refer back to Asimov's robots' "positronic brains." These were clearly not biological, apparently running some bogglingly sophisticated software, and fully self-aware, conscious, capable of moral quandaries, motivated by self-preservation, etc. If you stretch things a bit, they could even reproduce, because they controlled the manufacturing process.
In a nutshell, these robots were capable of reproduction, growth and development, and did all three. Other fictional examples include the SADEs of S.H.Jucha, and the Culture's "minds" of Iain M. Banks. None of them biological, all of them very obviously alive.
Your definition strikes me as constricted and myopic.
Corneel: That naturally limits my candidates to things that display behaviour…. Awareness requires, to the best of our knowledge, a nervous system. Brains and all that.
To also play devil's advocate, I think you might be making what I would call "Charlie's mistake", albeit at a very different place along the awareness continuum.
Plenty of bacteria would qualify for the 'displaying behavior in response to their surroundings' definition of 'conscious'.
To state my position, I'm with you on the requirement for a nervous system. Brain, not so much. But I'm also making an arbitrary cut-off.
But I see that Charlie is elaborating on his latest positioning of the goal-posts on the other thread: 'thinking about thinking", indeed. I guess I will have to wade through that.
Alan Fox: All life we know revolves around carbon. Could silicon, with similar properties (to an extent) replace carbon?
If you mean, could silicon's binding properties rival carbon as a basis for life as we know it, I strongly doubt it. But could silicon's semiconductor properties support life as we don't know it? I think we're still a long way from acing the Turing test, but much closer than we were 20 years ago.
Flint: None of them biological, all of them very obviously alive.
You missed the joke. If those robots and digital entities are alive, then they are clearly biological. Biology is the study of life.
I thought it was funny.
Flint: Your definition strikes me as constricted and myopic.
Then you misunderstood me. My comment was just meant to draw attention to the distinction between conscious intelligence and life. If you believe that conscious entities should qualify as living things, then that is fine by me. Just be aware that we are also using that term for slime molds and such, based on different criteria.
DNA_Jock: I think you might be making what I would call "Charlie's mistake"
That hurt, man.
DNA_Jock: Plenty of bacteria would qualify for the 'displaying behavior in response to their surroundings' definition of 'conscious'.
Yes, that was poorly phrased. I was talking about signs that certain animals have a sense of "what it feels like". I don't get those vibes from bacteria.
So far direct fossil evidence takes life back at least 3.75 billion years and molecular phylogeny suggests an even earlier date for the universal common ancestor.
Can you review the evidence for this claim?
DNA_Jock: But I see that Charlie is elaborating on his latest positioning of the goal-posts on the other thread: 'thinking about thinking", indeed. I guess I will have to wade through that.
Not even original!
Flint: If you mean, could silicon's binding properties rival carbon as a basis for life as we know it, I strongly doubt it.
Me too. I did say I was playing Devil's advocate. Organosilicons don't match carbon for variety. But on an alien world with different circumstances, temperature, pressure, atmosphere, who knows?
colewd:
I'm not qualified to that, Bill. But the relatively new science of molecular phylogenetics has produced some interesting results by genome comparison. Here is a fairly recent paper which I'd like to understand better that analyses Eukaryota, Archaeabacteria, and Eubacteria by molecular clock methods to produce a tree phylogeny.
Joe G kindly reviewed Alan's OP. A bit misguided though.
Joe G: Alan Fox is an Ignoramus Arguing for Personal Incredulity and Willful Ignorance
Personal incredulity and willful ignorance. I wonder if there's any evidence for these claims.
Part of Alan's OP: With few and very interesting exceptions, the genetic code—the way information that terrestrial organisms use to function, grow and reproduce is stored—is shared across all extant species (and in extinct species where DNA is still recoverable). I know of no other plausible explanation for this than life's diversity radiates from a common ancestror.
Joe G: Your personal incredulity and willful ignorance are not arguments,
Personal incredulity? Where? I don't see Alan here being personally incredulous. As per willful ignorance, he seems informed enough to know that organisms share a mostly universal genetic code, etc.
Joe G: Alan. A Common Design explains it, Alan.
Sorry Joe G, but your personal and naïve credulity about magical beings in the sky is not an argument. I also think that Alan knows about mythologies, only he has enough knowledge to understand where those mythologies belong. Clue: not in the set of potential explanations for the features listed.
Joe G: You don't have a mechanism capable of producing the diversity of life starting from a common ancestor
Alan is not producing the diversity of life himself, so I take you to mean that Alan doesn't know of any mechanisms capable of producing the diversity of life starting from a common ancestor. However, you seem to be willfully ignorant here, since many people have explained to you the mechanisms capable of doing precisely that. They're collectively called evolution.
Joe G: There isn't any evidence that nature can produce coded information processing systems.
I think someone very close to you claimed that personal incredulity is not an argument.
Every day more and more life forms arise, naturally, from their parent ones. All of them have ribosomes, naturally produced, since nobody has seen anything unnatural going on there, and these ribosomes process coded information. All goes on very naturally.
To go one step further, let's not forget that we're part of nature. We're capable of coding and decoding. If that wasn't possible in nature, then we'd be unable to do that ourselves. I'd guess that you'd think that we're able to do this by magic instead, but we've been able to understand how we operate, the energy necessary for us to be able to do any of it, the chemical reactions and the physical structures involved, and nowhere do we find anything unnatural about any of it. So, if not willfully, you're certainly ignorant.
Joe G: The genetic code involves a coded information processing system.
And as far as we can see, it works naturally. It diverges naturally. The coded information changes naturally, Since it changes, new encoded information arises all the time, again, naturally.
There isn't even a way to test the claim that nature can produce coed information processing systems.
Why should we doubt? It happens all the time all around us. Your personal incredulity notwithstanding.
Joe G: However there is ONE and ONLY one known cause able to produce coded information processing systems. And that is via intelligent agency volition.
So there's no natural reproduction Joe G? Because each time there's reproduction new codes arise, by mutation. All naturally. As per the only one you know about (talk about willful ignorance), do you mean humans? As I said above, we're part of nature, whatever we do, we do naturally. Not only that, our own nature, our own being, depends in those "code processing systems." You're therefore engaging in a cart-before-the-horse fallacy. You're implying that the very beings whose existence depends on those "code processing systems", made those very "code processing systems." That we made everything, even ourselves and our own ancestors.
Sure what you want is to imply a magical being in the sky, but, given that philosophical problem, you're trapped now in having to explain how the code information systems behind the "Intelligent Designer" came to be, to show evidence of that being's existence. However, the code processing system of that mythological being would have to have arisen, ahem, naturally, and you're back where you started, only with the extra weight of a bunch of absurd mythologies to prove real. Why not cut to the chase and start with the nature that's already around you?
Joe G: That means science says the genetic code was intelligently designed.
Nope. That says you didn't know that humans are part of nature. So far, I've never seen any human produce anything without complying with every natural demand required for doing so.
Thus, before jumping to ludicrous conclusions involving magical beings in the sky, I prefer to wait for some actual, and pretty strong, evidence. Knowing you, nothing will satisfy your personal incredulity, mixed with that naïve credulity about magical beings in the sky, and nothing will work against your willful ignorance. So, to finish, I invite you to check Matthew 7:3-5 in your Bible.
Alan Fox: Could there have been a precursor to the precursor?
Possibly, but I think transition to RNA (or DNA) would be a hard problem. Transition from RNA to DNA is a breeze – happens now, in both directions, with full preservation of sequence. I think a hypothesised precursor would need to have the fundamental properties of xNA – not least, some equivalent to semiconservative replication, which gives the conditions for 'improvement' by adaptation due to the possibility of competitive increase in copy number. But also it needs some way of preserving that which was successful pre-xNA in an xNA world, suggesting a need for an improbable genetic continuity through presumably rather different molecules. If they weren't different, the precursor would be xNA! So I tend to feel it's genetics all the way down.
Allan Miller,
It's kinda strange too, that ATP, and to a lesser extent GTP, have such a central role in energy metabolism and signalling.
Maybe nicotinamide predates the pyrimidines? (I'm just making stuff up here…)
Establishing a unified timescale for the early evolution of Earth and Life is challenging and mired in controversy because of the paucity of fossil evidence, the difficulty of interpreting it, and dispute over the deepest branching relationships in the tree of life.
Thanks for the paper. It appears establishing precise time scales with direct fossil evidence is challenging.
Nonlin.org
DNA_Jock: I'm just making stuff up here…
You always do.
Allan Miller: Transition from RNA to DNA is a breeze – happens now, in both directions, with full preservation of sequence.
Really? In a test tube, "abiogenesis style"?
Nonlin.org,
Nonlin.org: In a test tube, "abiogenesis style"?
In real life. Look up "transcriptase" and "reverse transcriptase". ETA and "RNA polymerase".
Nonlin.org:
No, in life. I'm not arguing that the transition from RNA to DNA would be an example of abiogenesis, so feel free to dispel that particular misunderstanding.
on March 5, 2021 at 12:13 pm said:
Nonlin.org: Really? In a test tube, "abiogenesis style"?
What tools did your proposed creator of life use? Did it have hands? Did it do it with it's mind?
When did all this happen?
Corneel: No idea. That's the reason why I am open to consciousness outside of organic life forms.
Apologies, Corneel, I've mainly been using my phone to comment and I missed this earlier (small screen and having abandoned Chrome and its spam for Firefox which has a mind of its own) and you make a distinction worth pursuing, I think. Organic life evolved on Earth. Can we construct a silicon brain capable of simulating human consciousness? Are such simulants alive or is a requirement for life that it reproduces rather than being created. Is organic life (carbon and water) the only possibility or can we conceive of some self-replicating electronic organisms?
Hey Joe G! I'm sorry to tell you this, but your reasoning doesn't look too much like reasoning, let alone like intelligent reasoning. It looks a lot more like rage outbursts.
Entropy the moron has taken exception to what I said about the genetic code. But its "rebuttal" is full of lies and bullshit.
Sez the guy who edits a paragraph to hide his blunder and then lies about it several times in a row.
Entropy: I don't see Alan here being personally incredulous.
Joe G: Here it is, again:
Alan: I know of no other plausible explanation for this than life's diversity radiates from a common ancestror.
Joe G: That is person incredulity, dumbass. About common design,
No Joe G, you're failing to understand a few words. Alan said that he doesn't know of any other plausible explanations. That's not personal incredulity, that's an honest assessment. The keyword there is plausible. "common design" is not plausible, since there's no designers to point to, and since it would involve loads of fallacious thinking. Lots of philosophical/reasoning blunders.
Entropy: Sorry Joe G, but your personal and naïve credulity about magical beings in the sky is not an argument.
Joe G: Yes, you are sorry. I don't need any magical beings in the sky you cowardly strawman humper.
Mockery Joe G. Not strawman. You're still credulous about magical beings, despite the reasoning/philosophical blunders involved.
Evidence, please. There isn't any evidence that "evolution" produced the diversity of life. Because there aren't any known evolutionary mechanisms capable. So you lose, you pathetic lying bitch.
Calm down Joe G. Your rage gets the worst out of you. It doesn't do you any good though. You miss 99% of what you're supposed to read.
There's plenty of evidence that our current life forms diverged from prior life forms. Plenty too of some of the mechanisms proposed. Sure, lots of work still to go on, but, since we know it happened, it;'s a matter of continuing to work to understand how. Scientists find more scenarios, further data fills in gaps and give us further clues, etc. In the meantime, magical beings in the sky are outstanding in their absence in any of the findings produced by the labour of scientists. That's to be expected, but you don't care, right Joe G? Do you know what's meant by a god-of-the-gaps argument? It's not good.
There isn't any evidence that nature can produce coded information processing systems.
Yes, there is. It happens all the time. I told you already. We don't see magical beings participating on any of it. So, if you want them considered, produce the evidence. Catch them in the act. As hard as people have looked into the processes behind, say, reproduction, they haven't caught any magical beings interfering.
Entropy: I think someone very close to you claimed that personal incredulity is not an argument.
Joe G: What I said is a fact, asshole. There isn't anything in any peer-reviewed paper that shows that blind and mindless processes did it. Next comes the bluffing equivocation:
So to answer my point about your personal incredulity, you double down on your personal incredulity? Do you know what irony means?
Wow, what a total shit eating freak you are. There isn't any natural, non-design, processes capable of producing a living organism. You lose.
All the life I see around me is natural, and all of it reproduces, no problem, without any magical beings being caught in the act of making it so. Scientists discover a lot about how it happens, and everything they find is physical, requiring no magic. They can even disturb the process physically, and the results of those disturbances point to the processes being, indeed, due to the factors those scientists inferred to be involved.
So, again, I prefer to wait until a magical being is caught in the act before letting such a ludicrous idea contaminate my mind. You, on the other hand, proceed backwards. You engage into believing a ludicrous proposition just because you grew up loving those fantasies.
There isn't any evidence that we were produced by nature you equivocating ass.
So your mother was impregnated by the holy spirit? Because if your father and mother did something together that resulted in you, then there you have the most direct evidence you could wish for.
You only assume it happens naturally. As far as anyone knows it happens by design, dipshit.
Really? It happens by design just because you say so, evidence and reason be damned?
Living organisms reproduce. No one knows if it happens naturally because there isn't any evidence that nature can produce living organisms containing coed information processing systems.
Again, it happens all the time. Reproduction is physical. We don't see spirits entering life forms and resulting in reproduction. We see life forms engaging in collecting the materials and the energy necessary for making their offspring. We see them engaging in attracting mates for the physical interaction necessary for reproduction. Nothing indicates that the physical is out of the question. Nothing indicates that anything else is needed.
Still no evidence that nature can produce coded information processing systems and still no way to test the claim that it can. And still no one can present a way to test the claim of universal common descent as no one knows of any mechanism that is capable. Heck evolutionary biologists still don't know what determines biological form!
Personal incredulity doubling down with god-of-the-gaps. It doesn't look like you understand your problems, as blind as you are with rage, and as unwilling as you are to try and turn that unhealthy skepticism from science to your own beliefs Joe G. If you did that you'd notice that your "proposition" is in much worst shape than you imagine evolution to be, and you'd be empty handed.
I'd be willing to consider "designers," as long as the foundational philosophical problems could be solved, and as long as pretty good evidence of their workings arose. You, on the other hand, are unwilling to consider natural phenomena because you detest the idea, and evidence doesn't matter as long as you can point to some incomplete answers, or make a good effort not to understand the answers available.
So far, we only see natural processes going on around us. That seems to suffice, even if we're still working on some of the answers. After all, what we don't know is evidence that we're still far from having all the answers. Even that we might never get there. But ignorance is just that, ignorance. Not a good foundation to propose ludicrous "answers" like your imaginary designers.
Calm down. Have some tea. Have a great day.
Allan Miller: No, in life. I'm not arguing that the transition from RNA to DNA would be an example of abiogenesis, so feel free to dispel that particular misunderstanding.
Wait. Wasn't this thread about the second coming of Millerurey? Or was it Darwin the first Martian?
And as long as you're on some sort of truth serum, why not admit both "evolution" and abiogenesis are bogus claims?
Also, "a breeze" is not what you should call something you can't even duplicate. But hey, that was before the truth serum, right?
Wait. Wasn't this thread about the second coming of Millerurey?
No you poor illiterate little monkey, the thread is about discussing the possibility that life, different from that on earth, could be discovered, thus providing us with a second instance of life. Giving us a second data point to try and figure out if there's more than one way for life to get started.
Allan's comment was easy to understand regardless of what the thread is about. If only you could read. I keep telling you to read carefully, and you keep writing the first thing that comes to your addled mind, after a less-than-shallow pass, despite the frequency with which you ridicule yourself. I'm serious: read more carefully and you'll avoid a lot of the embarrassment you suffer each and every time you post.
"Second coming" wrote as mockery by a religious nut! 🤣😂
Or was it Darwin the first Martian?
You think Milller and Urey were martians?
🤣😂
What the fuck are you on about?
Perserverance mission is still looking good!
https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8882/nasas-perseverance-drives-on-mars-terrain-for-first-time/
on March 11, 2021 at 1:45 pm said:
Corneel:
Corneel: That hurt, man
I feel your pain. 😢😆😊


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Barratt Brown, Michael 1918- (1)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


My mail files were at 2GB and growing, and I had to copy and transfer my 2GB (and growing) User database everytime I went home. With the introduction of NUS LargeMail, I can switch to using the IMAP server. To access mail on IMAP, I can use Mail.app interchangeably with Entourage, and even Thunderbird if I feel like it.
Additionally, if I am referring to my Archives in Entourage (I have relevant mail dating back to 1998), I can have Mail.app open to my current inbox. All I have to do is cut and paste, or email relevant portions out. ANd I can enjoy the benefits of Mail's better integration.
But OS X's Mail.app still needs some help before it's up to speed with Entourage - and there is plenty of help out there; e.g. Hawk Wings suggesting a way to speed up Mail - hawkwings.net is full of the good stuff! There are also plugins and descriptions at tikouka.net and maczealots.com.
MacOS X HTTP Mail Plugin - to access Hotmail, which is inbuilt in Entourage.
Spam Sieve - I've been using SpamSieve since Feb 2004 and its great - now it catches what NUS' filter lets through (all my other accounts are redirected to GMail). See instructions on the webpage.
Letterbox 0.16 (three-paned view) - I installed Letterbox on the office G4 this morning, and it's lovely. It was MisNomer's recent post that prompted me to revisit this, and all it took was a couple of seconds and it now looks lovely!
Mail Scripts 2.7.11 - want this primarily for its flexible Address Book additions.
MailUnreadStatusBar - complements Google Notifier on the menu bar. I also use GrowlMail but it comes and goes, and I forget!


Karen is a Visual Development artist based in Pasadena. She graduated from Art Center College of Design. She previously worked as a 2D Environment Artist at Insomniac Games and is currently a Visual Development Artist at DreamWorks Television. Karen likes magic shows, horror stories, and the occasional raccoon.


Buy Converse Skate Shoes at Native Skate Store.
The CTAS Pro OX from Converse is a classic Converse shoe reworked to make it skate super good. The CTAS Pro OX features a suede upper, rubber toe, super grippy classic Converse sole unit and shock absorbing Lunarlon insoles.


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Comic Book Review
The Tenth Doctor #10
Writer: Robbie Morrison
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Hi-Fi
Publisher: Titan Comics
RRP: UK £2.65, US $3.99
Gabby and the Doctor are back in New York after a terrifying excursion into the past. Having witnessed the true value of life in the terror of the trenches, Gabby's travels have already left a deep impact – but evading the stares of the Weeping Angels may prove easier than coming home. Overwhelmed by her experiences, Gabby is happy to return to Sunset Park, and see her friends and family again… until the Echo strikes, amplifying everyday noise into ear-shattering, mind-splinteringly debilitating waves of sound. What is the Echo, and can the Doctor and Gabby solve the mystery before the cacophony drives the city mad…?
This strikes a chord with me! I often find modern telly programmes to be too darned noisy – with music that's too intrusive, sound effects that are too loud, and dialogue that I can't make out properly. When the phenomenon known as the Echo strikes in this issue, characters similarly cannot hear others speak or even hear themselves think. Thankfully, this being a comic book, we can read the words being spoken, so the audio mix is not an issue (no "mumblegate" here). Loud sounds are rendered as big comic words.
The artwork, by newcomer Eleonora Carlini, veers towards the cartoony end of the visual spectrum, but it's an appropriate look for this frequently zany one-shot romp. The bad guys are ugly little green critters in three-legged travel machines, looking rather like a cross between a Madball and Crazy Frog. One of them treats us to the following twist on a cry for help that was well-used by the Daleks in the 1980s: "My undercarriage has been discombobulated! I am unseated!"
Gabby looks more like her old self, which is fitting given the homecoming aspect of Robbie Morrison's story. Daniel Indro has provided us with great art over the last four issues, but his Gabby never really looked much like the character originally envisaged by Elena Casagrande. As rendered by Carlini, she does. With the return of Gabby's bickering family and her best friend Cindy, it's almost as if Casagrande and this range's original writer Nick Abadzis are back in the room. In fact, they will return next issue, towards which this instalment is clearly paving the way…
Echo is a short and simplistic affair, but a fresh and fun one.
Richard McGinlay


The Kicks SR has a standard Around View® Monitor to allow the driver to see objects all around the vehicle on a screen. The C-HR only offers a rear monitor.
Both the Kicks and the C-HR have standard driver and passenger frontal airbags, front side-impact airbags, driver knee airbags, side-impact head airbags, front seatbelt pretensioners, front wheel drive, height adjustable front shoulder belts, four-wheel antilock brakes, traction control, electronic stability systems to prevent skidding, crash mitigating brakes, rearview cameras, available blind spot warning systems and rear cross-path warning.
On the EPA test cycle the Kicks gets better fuel mileage than the C-HR (31 city/36 hwy vs. 27 city/31 hwy).
The Kicks SV/SR has a standard easy tire fill system. When inflating the tires, the vehicle's integrated tire pressure sensors keep track of the pressure as the tires fill and tell the driver when the tires are inflated to the proper pressure. The C-HR doesn't offer vehicle monitored tire inflation.
The Nissan Kicks may be more efficient, handle and accelerate better because it weighs about 650 pounds less than the Toyota C-HR.
The Kicks has 10.1 cubic feet more passenger volume than the C-HR (93.9 vs. 83.8).
The Kicks has 2.6 inches more front headroom, .2 inches more front legroom, 4 inches more front shoulder room, .2 inches more rear headroom, 1.5 inches more rear legroom, 1.1 inches more rear hip room and .7 inches more rear shoulder room than the C-HR.
The Kicks has a much larger cargo area than the C-HR with its rear seat up (25.3 vs. 19 cubic feet).
The Kicks SV/SR has a standard remote vehicle starting system, so the vehicle can be started from inside the driver's house. This allows the driver to comfortably warm up the engine before going out to the vehicle. The C-HR doesn't offer a remote starting system.
To shield the driver and front passenger's vision over a larger portion of the windshield and side windows, the Kicks has standard extendable sun visors. The C-HR doesn't offer extendable visors.


Knowing that Shri Babaji had come to Devarayasamudram, the native village, some devotees from Gangapura (a hamlet belonging to Ashtagrama in Karnataka, South India) were so keen to invite Babaji to visit and bless the village. Gangapura is a small village near Kolar about twenty miles from the city. There are about sixty or seventy families residing there making an overall population of one hundred and fifty to two hundred people in total. The village has two beautiful temples, one of them is of Mother Goddess's and the other is of Lord Vishnu. With the revered invitation from the devotees, Shri Babaji visited and blessed the place on 28th of August 2016.
The villagers had made all the arrangements to receive the Great Yogi with all reverence. On 28th, at around 8:30 am, we started from Devarayasamudram and reached Gangapura by 9:10 am. All the villagers were very eagerly waiting to receive Shri Babaji at the village entrance with Sacred Kumbham and auspicious musical instruments. As soon as Shri Babaji got down at the place some of the village elders garlanded Babaji, washed His Lotus Feet and did Aarati with all love and devotion. Each one had that gleam on their face seeing 'His Holiness' with all the aura filled in His beautiful shining absorbed Eyes, which would attract even the most distant person in the crowd.
Shri Babaji was then taken to Mother Goddess's temple to perform Abhishekam. It was such a blessed event and all the villagers were overwhelmed to see Shri Babaji perform the Abhishekam. Once it was done Shri Babaji was then invited to Lord Vishnu's temple to perform Abhishekam there as well. Then Shri Babaji was invited to sit on a dais in the Vishnu temple where the crowd had gathered to hear the Words of Wisdom from a Great Yogi's mouth. With the program about to begin one of the disciples of Shri Babaji gave a brief introduction about His Holiness's life, service to His Guru and His Mission, to the crowd gathered there. Then Shri Babaji conveyed a blessings message, the spiritual essence based on His Tapas experience and spoke about Shri Swamiji and the way He taught Babaji, for about thirty minutes.
When Shri Babaji started to recite a mantra before His speech, everyone could sense that Divine environment filled with pin-drop silence in spite of a big gathering, with all ears widely open to hear a Great Yogi talk. Shri Babaji then spoke about His Guru Shri Swamiji, about the mind, Sadhana and Tapas which led to Self Realization. Shri Babaji emphasized on doing Sadhana regularly to become aware of the real existence.
After Shri Babaji's talk, a few devotees sang some bhajans which induced more love and devotion in the hearts of people who were present there. When the bhajans came to an end the villagers lined up to take Shri Babaji's Darshan in the temple. Shri Babaji stayed in the same place until the last person could have Darshan. Later Shri Babaji was taken to the Mother Goddess's temple to perform Mangalarathi. Here the priest garlanded Shri Babaji and offered the Mahaprasadam kept to Goddess. Then His Holiness was taken to perform Mangalarathi in the Vishnu temple and the priests here also garlanded Shri Babaji and offered the Mahaprasadam kept to Lord Vishnu.
While all these things happened, when one of the boys asked Babaji to get an understanding as to what is the essence of performing these rites, Shri Babaji said that, "Though the Divine is all-pervading and the oneness is experienced everywhere, it is required that these spiritual rites are performed to induce faith and devotion in the hearts of people which will bring them on the path of spirituality and experience that oneness." Such a beautiful teaching.
Later, as Shri Swamiji and Shri Babaji always liked the most, a mass feeding was arranged for all the people gathered there. Shri Babaji blessed the food which became the Mahaprasadam. All of us were blessed to have the Mahaprasadam and around 2:00 pm in the afternoon Shri Babaji conveyed His Love and Blessings to all the people gathered there and left to Devarayasamudram. All the devotees who were there, even though they were sad to see Babaji leave, offered their deepest prostrations to His Holiness and followed Him until the entrance of the village to bid Him adieu. They also requested Shri Babaji to visit the village every year and sanctify the place when His Holiness comes to Devarayasamudram.


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California's CalPERS ran pilot program to tackle large variability in prices for orthopedic surgeries
By Joseph Burns
CEO SUMMARY: Probably the most-watched reference pricing program in healthcare to date was initiated by CalPERS. It focused on the variability in the prices of knee and hip replacement surgeries. Just as Safeway experienced a drop in clinical lab test prices of 32% in its reference pricing program, CalPERs paid 30% less for these surgeries at the end of the first year of the program. These outcomes were realized with no measurable negative change in quality or patient experience.
I N THE UNITED STATES, REFERENCE PRICING is still in its infancy. Most physicians, hospital administrators, and lab executives are unfamiliar with the details of this healthcare cost-cutting tool.
However, in the short life of reference pricing in this country, there is one example of the program that has attracted national news coverage and plenty of attention with the provider and payer communities. In 2011, CalPERS, which manages the retirement and benefits programs for California state employees, implemented a reference pricing program that targeted joint replacement surgeries.
This example of reference pricing is instructive because it shows clinical lab executives and pathologists how this strategy is used to lower prices for high-cost clinical services. It is at the other end of the spectrum from Safeway's use of reference pricing to lower the prices of clinical laboratory testing, a much less expensive clinical service than joint replacement surgeries.
There were two reasons why CalPERS' reference pricing initiative got wide publicity. First, orthopedic surgeries were a big cost driver for CalPERS' health benefit program. At 13% of total healthcare spending, muscle and bone disorders were the single biggest spending category and the increase in spending was 39% just for the years 2005 to 2008. Hip and knee replacements made up about a third of this spending.
Controlling Healthcare Costs
Second, with 1.38 million members in its benefit programs, CalPERS is among the largest such organizations in the United States. It is considered an innovator in how it approaches managing healthcare and controlling the cost of care. That is why its successes are regularly studied and copied by other big employers.
A third reason why this reference pricing program was closely-watched is that joint replacement surgeries are big money-makers for most hospitals and health systems. Thus, any attempt by a large employer to reduce the prices paid for these procedures could be a direct threat to the financial resources of these hospitals.
To create a baseline for comparing costs, CalPERS worked with its PPO, managed by Anthem Blue Cross. A study determined the average costs for hip and knee replacements among California hospitals.
High Degree of Variation
Data provided by Anthem showed a high degree of variation in negotiated hospital prices for hip and knee replacements. The range was from a low of $15,000 to a high of $110,000. The next step was to develop sufficient coverage by those hospitals that also met a certain cost threshold. The program set a maximum of $30,000 for these surgeries.
Next, CalPERS included 46 medical institutions as providers in the reference pricing program. This network allowed access to patients throughout the state.
At the end of 2011, the first year of the reference pricing program, Anthem determined that CalPERS had paid 30% less per surgery, compared to the base year of 2010. That generated savings of $2.8 million.
Quality for these patients was comparable to the base year. HealthCore, a research division of Anthem, compared readmission rates for CalPERS patients who underwent these surgeries in 2010 versus 2011 and found no significant difference in quality outcomes.
Employers Taking Steps To Use Reference Pricing
ALTHOUGH REFERENCE PRICING has been under the radar of most lab administrators and pathologists, it has already caught the attention of a sizeable number of employers.
In 2014, Aon Hewitt conducted its annual Health Care Survey. A total of 1,230 employers covering more than 10 million employees participated. One interesting finding was that 52% of employers confirmed that their "current health strategy is focused on traditional cost-mitigation approaches such as employee cost-shifting." However, only 21% of respondents believed this would be their preferred approach in three to five years.
What might be their alternative healthcare cost control strategy? Aon Hewitt wrote that, "Instead, employers are considering new tactics that require employees to take more action. For instance, the survey found that 68% of employers said they plan to adopt reference-based pricing, while 10% had already adopted this approach."
Use of reference pricing has also been given a green light by the current federal administration. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation issued a report, "Exploring the Use of Reference Pricing by Insurers and Employers." The authors wrote, "The Obama Administration recently indicated that the use of reference pricing by large group and self-funded group plans does not violate the Affordable Care Act's cap on patients' annual out-of-pocket costs. Some experts say this guidance is likely to encourage additional employers to adopt reference pricing strategies."
These developments provide evidence that reference pricing is gaining favor among the nation's large employers. Organizations such as CalPERS and Safeway are the first-movers and their successes will encourage other employers to use the reference pricing strategy.
Prices Dropped 19%
How did patients respond to the financial incentives of the CalPERS reference pricing program? During 2010, the baseline year, 47% of CalPERs patients went to designated hospitals. That increased to 63% in 2011, the first year of the program.
At the end of the two-year study, it was determined that there was a 21% increase in use of preferred hospitals by CalPERS members. Hospitals responded by dropping their prices. It was reported that CalPERS' average cost for these joint replacements dropped by 19%, from $35,408 to $28,695 per admission.
Tags: affordable care act, cap, clinical lab, clinical lab test, Clinical Laboratory, clinical laboratory test, clinical laboratory testing, lab administrator, lab executive, lab test, lab test prices, laboratory test, laboratory testing, pathologists, reference pricing strategy, the affordable care act