Announcements

Announcement #1

The Origin of life Prize (http://www.us.net/life):

An unofficial announcement of a $1.35 million dollars (U. S.), one-time, prize is on the Web; to be awarded to the best (highly plausible) "mechanism" for the spontaneous emergence of natural, pre-biotic "genetic" information "sufficient to give rise to life." It was sent to Dr. Don Ugent in mid-1998. It was a response to our Web site on Protocells. When Dr. Ugent told me about this pre-announcement, I immediately called Sidney W. Fox . (The prize is offered through The Gene Emergence Project of The Origin of Life Foundation). I told him that there was a $300 non-refundable application fee to discourage "frivolous submissions" and to help pay for part of the review process. (I knew nothing would stand in his way to enter.) He was for preparing an application and said that the cost was no problem.

At the time, we had little information about the judges. In the 3/12/99 update, Sidney was in the list from which the highest tier of judges would be selected (with added notice that he had died). Others nominated include: Francis Crick, Stanley Miller, Leslie Orgel, Thomas Cech, Sidney Altman, Christian de Duve, Melvin Calvin, Carl Woese, James Ferris, Juan Oro, Gerald Joyce, Harold Morowitz, Robert Shapiro, Christoph Adami, Andre Brack, Ilya Prigogine, A. Graham Cairns-Smith, Manfred Eigen, Gustaf Arrhenius, Jeffrey Bada, Bernd-Olaf Kuppers, Michael Russell, Alan Hall, Hubert Yockey, Stuart Kauffman, Christopher Langton, William Demski, Jack Szostak, Albert Eschnermoser, Guy Ourisson, Patrick Forterre, and Lynn Margulis. The other noted individuals suggested for the highest tier and other levels included: E. Shock, G. Zubay, N. Lahav, H. Hartman, D. Di Giulio, D. Deamer, G. Fleischaker, T. Ray,F. Dyson. K. Kobayashi, K. Dose, N. Pace, A. Bar-Nun, J. Corliss, A. Pappelis, J Bozzola, T. Jukes, F. Raulin, J. Chela-Flores, A. Delsemme, C. McKay, A. Schwartz, A. Salam (deceased), J. "W." Schopt, J. Kasting, C. Chyba, D. DeVincenzi, N. Horowitz, A. Negron-Mendoza, A. Lazcano, A. Weber, G, Wachterschauser, B, Poglazov, J. Lake, H. Yanagawa, H. Baltscheffsky, J. Lacey, M. Meyer, K. Nealson, V. Kolb, A. Spirin, M. Kritzky, M. Rizzotti, H. Noller, R. Dawkins, S. J. Gould, and about 250 others who are among the known leaders in their fields. There are others who will be added.

The prize is being offered "to stimulate" research in this area. "The subject of interest is the genesis of primordial information itself rather than its physico-chemical matrix of retention and transmission." It's a natural for students in my History of Biology 315-2 course. In my opinion, the question about the origin and early evolution of life has been answered. "To win, the explanation must correspond to empirical biochemical and thermodynamic reality, and be published in a well-respected, peer-reviewed science journal(s)." Now there's the rub. Have you ever had an article rejected because your "truth" is too far ahead of other "truths?" What a time one can have with reviewers after submitting an "unusual" manuscript for publication. There are those who say: "Truth begins with a minority of one." On page six of this Web site, the prize is not being offered for proof of life origin through natural causes, --- "but for a plausible, empirically supported theory of mechanism within Nature." In the case of the origin of life, I believe Sidney W. Fox found the answer. Who will make a formal application for Sidney?

"Life," in this contest is defined as follows: "--- any system which can independently do all four of the following:"

1. "Delineate itself from its environment through the production and maintenance of a membrane equivalent, most probably a rudimentary or quasi-active-transport membrane necessary for selective absorption of nutrients, excretion of wastes, and overcoming osmotic and toxic gradients,

2. Capture, transduce, store, and call up energy for utilization (work),

3. Actively replicate, not just passively polymerize or crystallize, and

4. Write, store, and pass along seemingly conceptual information that 'gives orders' for what is to be manufactured in the future, and to actually bring to pass those processes and "factory products" out of linguistic-like coded (codon) messages('recipes') into physical biochemical, biological, and thermodynamic reality."

"Inanimate stepping stones of abiotic evolution are essential components to any natural process theory of the molecular evolution of life. Full reign must be given to the exploration of spontaneously forming complexity and to animate systems of self-organization and replication. But reductionistic attempts to provide models of life development must not sacrifice the very emergent property of 'life' that biology seeks to explain. Coacervates and various primordial quasimembrane models, for example, may resemble membrane equivalents and merit considerable ongoing research, but should not be confused with the active transport membranes of the simplest known free-living organisms. Proposing a mechanism that explains the origin of life ought not consist of 'defining down' the meaning and essence of the observable phenomenon of 'life' to match our theories."

"Scaffolding models," "biochemical correlation," "design anthropomorphisms," and "infinity issues" also were discussed. Submission requirements were given. The rules are being further edited with hopes to begin accepting submissions in 1999. Sixteen books are suggested for background reading (from 1984 to 1998). Our textbook for Biology 315-2 is one of these. Adami's book and Brack's book ( in our book report section) are in the list. Shall we review them all?

We will take up the High School Genetics Program at another time. (It is from the same foundation.)

A.J.P.
D.U.

Announcement #2

TEACHING THE ORIGIN AND EARLY EVOLUTION OF LIFE. A. Pappelis, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901. The Thermal Protein Theory for the origin and early evolution of cellular life accounts for the transition of inanimate thermal proteins (TPs) to animate protocellular life (Domain Protolife) from which prokaryotes emerged. The sequence of evolutionary steps are: amino acids (dry or in "sea" water) + heat --> thermal proteins + "sea" water --> protocells --> metaprotocells --> progenotes (contains RNA world) -> cenancestor(s) (contains DNA world)--> prokaryotes (Domains Archaea and Bacteria) -> eukaryotes (Domain Eucarya). The first informational system (TPs) gave rise to informed oligo/polypeptides (non ribosomal syntheses) and oligo/polynucleotides that enabled the emergence of central dogma type genomes (introns-late hypothesis is favored). Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science, Suppl. 90: 61. 1999. Abstract of a presentation April 10, 1999.