Loading...The ‘metabolism first’ hypothesis – life started long before cells were able to replicate
I am attributing this to Freeman Dyson, though I am not sure if he got the idea from elsewhere. Anybody know? He explains it briefly here in this video somewhere https://youtu.be/vL00KEB1H50 and it always stuck with me that, why not? It’s more likely that cells worked out how to do stuff long before they learned to replicate, and only then did one of them work that out. Mystery solved, no?
Interesting. I found this video informative but it doesn’t really explain why cells had metabolisms long before they chanced on reproducing themselves. This may be revisited one day and lots of biologists find out they just believed the usual story, rather then used a physicists mindset to allow many possible explanations.
This blog article is worth a read. though unstable doesn’t mean impossible.
Oh wow, I heard of this but it was poopooed by my biology teacher at school. I think because he thought that if the chances are slim, why not add both slim chances together so there was only 1 problem to solve.
Teachers are not always right, either are biologists, either was Dyson, but I would like to hear why this isn’t accepted as a possibility. Adding the link to this comment so it shows the video in the comments section. Thanks for reminding me about the idea/hypothesis.
Reproduce, replicate, divide? Either way, making the cell came first, splitting it to make more, must have come later, obviously. Not sure what the problem is? Read this new research paper: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2021/03/scientists-create-simple-synthetic-cell-grows-and-divides-normally