21

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 22:27:38 »

For what it's worth, the presence of ammonium sulphate will make the destruction of the titanocene derivative a little quicker.

I have been thinking along those lines. Calcite saturated ASF solution is probably necessary on the oil side to create an electronically suitable rutile layer. It will be then be deposited from a suitably concentrated calcium titanate solution.

The rest is a huge stack of wishful thinking.

There lays the difference between us. I am an optimist, so I go ahead and produce a successful model. You are a pessimist, engage in a huge stack of negative thinking, and produce nothing.

22

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 21:00:17 »

scientifically designed experiments.

OK mix titanocene dicarbonyl with water.
(use a fume cupboard to protect you from the carbon monoxide produced.)

It only needs one experiment to show that it fails.

OK to be realistic the experiment will also need to include calcite, ammonium sulfate/formamide (ASF) solution, and schreibersite (meteoritic trinickel phosphide). The anatase phase is stabilized in proximity with calcite but rutile is the bulk stable phase of titania. Thus an anatase/rutile heterojunction will develop. Anatase has the lower band gap so the calcite side will be negative. Water reacts with schreibersite to produce nickel cation and pyrophosphite, a precursor for ATP. ASF solution will dissolve some of the calcite next to the anatase. Nickel cation will be attracted to the anatase and be reduced forming a dendritic nickel contact for the calcite side. On the other side of the titania hydrogen will be oxidized by photovoltaic current leading to the polymerization of metallic cyclopentadienyl as a byproduct of the titanocene/water reaction. Voila! - a complete solar cell. When the temperature drops low enough ammonium sulphate will act as a battery. When the temperature warms up there will be a reversal of current allowing electrochemical electrodes in the larger system to clear themselves of impurities. I do not know the Schottky properties of the anatase/nickel contact but the anthropocentric argument says they are favorable. Unfortunately, some of the kinetics is very slow, particularly that of titania and surface diffusion, so the experiment make take a very long time.

23

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 18:25:52 »

One can use applied science to prove pure science theory, with the experiment actually generating artificial end products that may have useful applications.

My model is pure science that needs to be validated by scientifically designed experiments. This should be relatively easy to do since many of the parts of my model can easily be translated into laboratory experiments. I definitely hope that this will have useful spin-offs.

Nobody can prove how life appeared on earth, period. There is no pure science observational data.

Pure science often deals with events removed in time and space. These are considered as provable as any complex phenomena.

24

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 17:54:30 »

I am talking about crystals grown from a restricted area at one end with a restricted point of nucleation. They are rather knife like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite

That illustrates my point.
There are 14 pictures of calcite crystals on that page; 13 of them show that you are wrong.
You focus on the minutiae that support your bizarre idea.

You have convinced yourself that your idea is right, just because it is faintly possible.*
That's not the way to do science.

* It isn't : you need water for calcite crystals but water destroys the titanocene.

I make my choices based on the larger picture. There are two horizontal UV polymerized hydrocarbon membranes with vacuum above, oil between, and water below. These have an approximately vertical interface with calcite. The top membrane gets punctured by micrometeorites, but these holes are healed by further polymerization of dissolved hydrocarbons. The lower membrane  was originally on the surface, got buried in dust, and is now thoroughly impermeable. This makes the oil extremely dry because it loses its water to the vacuum. The shape of the calcite crystal was first determined by it growing from a hole in the lower membrane. Water can travel along the oil/calcite interface where it reacts with the titanocene to form an anatase coating on the calcite. This coating is eroded away where the crystal has penetrated the vacuum allowing light to enter and induce photovoltaic action in the rest of the anatase. The T-Tauri stellar environment has adequate erosion. The oil is produced by the hydrogenation of carbon. The hydrogen is produced by the serpentinization of minerals in the underlying spring. My choices are not arbitrary, but are determined by the demands of the entire picture. This is good science.

25

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 07:33:56 »

And out of all of those electrons in the body, what proportion of them do you think have enough energy to damage DNA?

Not many, but still tens of thousands times more than from the cosmic ray. Beta radiation from potassium 40 is the largest source. Most of the ionizing damage is done by secondary electrons from matter in the body. Then there are free radicals and other mutagenic chemicals. Chemistry is electron clouds after all.

26

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 22/05/2020 03:12:59 »

The chirality of interaction does not depend on the  energy by the principle of equivalence.

Nobody ever said that it did.

How was I supposed to take this statement when we  were talking about interactions?

I'm pretty sure the energy levels of cosmic rays are incomparable to the energy levels of electrons in normal matter.

So I would expect there to be at least a slight bias towards one chirality over another at sea level.

There is but the flux is on the order of 0.1 electron per square meter per second. The density is about 34 orders of magnitude smaller than the density of electrons in the body, which was my original point.

27

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 21/05/2020 23:23:42 »

Well, so far the data easily satisfies all the ifs,

No.
At best, the data says "maybe" to all the ifs.
That's not the same as saying it happened.

There you go again - pointing out that philosophically there is always the possibility of a counterexample. Generally people do not speak that way because it is too verbose. After a large number of confirming examples and no counterexamples they start using declarative sentences. When, if ever, are you going to start to seriously respond to my confirming examples, rather than continuing to nitpick?

Calcite crystals are long and pointed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_spar#/media/File:Silfurberg.jpg
That's the typical shape of calcite crystals- barely twice as long as they are wide with fairly blunt ends.

I am talking about crystals grown from a restricted area at one end with a restricted point of nucleation. They are rather knife like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite
Once the area is fixed by lateral constraints the aspect ratio will just keep growing. In my case the crystals start from a micrometeorite puncture and eventually become coated on the sides.

28

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 21/05/2020 22:30:13 »

If the chirality of electrons from cosmic rays can influence us, why should they outweigh the vastly larger number of electrons in the matter around us?

I'm pretty sure the energy levels of cosmic rays are incomparable to the energy levels of electrons in normal matter.

The chirality of interaction does not depend on the  energy by the principle of equivalence.

To confirm the stupidity, most of the cosmic rays at ground level are muons, which are achiral.

I must remember to not let my own standards lapse, because of the low standards I have just encountered. In glibly answering I was thinking of the pions in the top part of the shower, which are pseudoscaler. Muons are, of course, just as chiral as electrons.

They decay into pairs of electrons and antineutrinos (and positrons and neutrinos) whose chirality cancel out. There are equal numbers of pairs of both types so the entire shower is achiral!

That seems unlikely. We appear to live in a strongly matter-dominated Universe. Do you have a reference for cosmic rays producing or containing equal numbers of electrons and positrons (or muons and anti-muons)?

The shower is created from the energy of the cosmic ray, not from matter. This is common knowledge. There have to be an equal number of electrons and positrons by conservation of charge.

the entire shower is achiral!

Electrons are significantly more likely to interact with matter than anti-neutrinos, so matter wouldn't see the shower as achiral on average.

The shower would still be achiral because there are an equal number of positrons.

29

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 21/05/2020 20:50:27 »

Of possible relevance: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-cosmic-rays-left-indelible-imprint.html

This one of the most stupid articles I've seen. Maybe I should give it an award. If the chirality of electrons from cosmic rays can influence us, why should they outweigh the vastly larger number of electrons in the matter around us? To compound the stupidity the author lets us assume that the whole cosmic ray shower carries the chirality of matter. The shower is produced by the energy of the ray, independent of its type, so there are equal numbers of particles of opposite type making the entire shower achiral! (This assumes the cosmic ray that induced the shower is a photon or is baryonic, which is generally the case. (Baryons cannot pass through the atmosphere without being stopped.)  If it happens to be an electron, the shower will just have the one unit of chirality of that one electron.)

30

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 21/05/2020 19:25:50 »

Of course not; it is not a house of cards.

If there was a satellite, and if it was in the right place at the right time , and if it had the right springs and if the calcite gre in the wrong shaped crystals and if the temperature was right and if the vapour pressure was right and if the layer of goo had the right properties and if the ammonium sulphate grew into clean crystals (It reacts with calcite, btw) and if the universe decided to favour it with titanocene dicarbonyl then there's still a stack more cards to go.

Well, so far the data easily satisfies all the ifs, (except the calcite has the right shaped crystals). The games on! Keep dealing the cards. (I am aware, btw, that calcite reacts with ammonium sulfate. The calcite automatically gets coated with an insoluble coating of anatase).

31

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 21/05/2020 17:28:04 »

 

Fortunately the community of Halloysite nanotube creatures at the top has learned how to regulate the nuclear reactor so that it does not create a geyser. They add chloride as a neutron absorber when they detect radioiodine.

The nuclear control system works as follows:

Radioactive iodine-131 with a half life of 8 days binds to tyrosine within electroluminant material at the bottom of the calcite crystal. The light generated by the beta rays passes to the photovoltaic cells remaining on the sides of the bottom half of the crystal. The electricity passes by nanowires  to the locations of deposits of neutron absorbing materials, e.g., chlorine and boron. To prevent them from redissolving these have been covered by membranes that are sutured by diselenide bonds in selenoprotein K. When the electricity reduces these bonds the protein splits and the membrane ruptures releasing the neutron poisons and reducing the power of the reactor.

This system was added after the heat from radioisotopes aluminum-26 and iron-60 diminished, which was long after the basic genetic code had been fixed. A stop codon was given an alternative interpretation as a codon for selenocysteine, which contains one half of the diselenide bond. The purpose of selenoprotein K today is unknown. Its high redox potential and intrinsically disordered character were tailored to its original purpose. The electroluminant material today is in the coat of Deinococcus Radiodurans, the general purpose extremophile. A selenium containing molecule regulates the removal of iodine from tyrosine today. Iodine-131 removed itself because it decays to the inert gas xenon.

32

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 20/05/2020 23:03:35 »

What do you have to say about my last reply,

I'm not bothering to read it.
Not once you explained just how far-fetched your house of cards was.

Of course not; it is not a house of cards. For instance, one of the problems of starting photosynthesis from a photovoltaic cell is getting the semiconductor pure enough. The best way to solve the problem is by depositing it from a hydrophobic chemical. So I showed under what conditions the natural process of a gamma ray burst generates the hydrophobic chemical  titanocene dicarbonyl. As for the calcite crystal I just suggest you look at some of the online images of large, beautifully shaped calcite crystals. By the way, anatase is the crystalline form of titania that naturally deposits on calcite.

33

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 20/05/2020 22:42:49 »

To add a little complexity photocells are available to produce DC to complement the AC from the ammonium sulfate. These are anatase on calcite. The anatase is deposited from titanocene dicarbonyl dissolved in the oil phase. It is generated by gamma ray evaporation of tholin covered titanium rich refractory grains. The calcite is produced from aragonite solution. Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.

You just jumped the shark.

Jumping sharks is necessary to prevent collisions when kitesurfing. What do you have to say about my last reply, which gives a lot more detail about how my model fits modern biology?

34

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 20/05/2020 21:20:25 »

Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.

After spores are formed the calcite also points down through a membrane to the flow of water out of the spring. There are at least three membranes. The top one separates vacuum and oil. The middle one separates oil and water and is where most of the activity takes place. Halloysite nanotubes lie along this membrane and extend into the calcite crystal cutting it in half during reproduction. They are of different types. During cold periods most of the polar fluid freezes leaving a saturated ammonium sulfate/formamide (ASF) solution at both ends and through the middle of one type of nanotube. This sets the fundamental chemistry that eventually leads to the largest part of biochemicals. Proteins have very low solubility in ASF solution, so ribonucleoprotein complexes concentrate in the gap between the two halves of the calcite crystal. This gap is the protocyanobacteria zone.

A second type of nanotube codistills hydrocarbons and water through the nanotube when a there is a temperature difference between the ends. This selects for hydrocarbons with about the same vapor pressure as water. Most notable is benzene which combines with serine to produce phenylalanine. The tubes also move in this process, mainly longitudinally. The bottom membrane is selectively permeable and separates water flowing in opposite directions. With a transverse current this concentrates metal ions to be used in the biochemistry. This is the proto-Deinococcus zone because it is cannibalized during the reproduction process.

When a layer of dust has collected above the top membrane it is punctured and oil permeates the layer. A new hydrocarbon membrane then begins to form by UV irradiation so the function of each layer moves up a step. Proto-virus/spores invade the newly refunctioned layers to perform the metamorphosis. The volume with nanotubes surrounding the calcite crystal, including some vertical ones, is the protoeukayote zone. The nanotubes will eventually be replaced by microtubules. The outlying areas are the protoarchaea zone.

Nitric oxide from the gamma ray blast was the original oxidant. As it was replaced by electrooxidation, surplus NO was used to oxidize methane. The catalyst here was the initial foundation for both nitrogen fixation and chlorophyll production. NO was the signal that new dust was being introduced into the system and still is the signal for Deinococcus to reproduce. Glass droplets with a high water content were formed after the blast because they were in a high H environment. On devitrification the water was released to hydrolyze the absorbed poly-NS and HCN. This is the source of the crucial ASF solution.

35

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 20/05/2020 01:50:59 »

It seems that Kapteyn's Star is around 11 billion years old and possesses a nearly Earth-sized planet with a greater estimated density than the Earth. That would strongly suggest that it contains a significant proportion of heavy elements.

The star only has only 14 % of the Sun's iron concentration. If it is indeed denser than the Earth, than the percentage of elements between helium and iron may be even lower. These are the ones most necessary for life. It is unclear in just how high a concentration these need to be. I say that a gamma ray burst is necessary to produce all the processes that lead to life. For instance, the titanocene dicarbonyl to produce photovoltaic cells could only have been produced by a gamma ray burst. These do not occur until several billion years after stellar formation.

It also does not take just one suitable planetary system for life to spread. It takes a sizable population so that there is a sizable probability that life would survive long enough to make the interstellar trip. To get from the early Milky Way to our epoch would probably take many generations of trips. As metallicity increased the average number of offspring in each generation would increase. If so, why do we not see more evidence of extraterrestrial life? After all we are talking about more than twice the age of the Solar System.

36

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 19/05/2020 22:23:56 »

Two aqueous solutions of different temperature and composition.

OK, so what's the "pipe" between them.

There are membranes between two counterflow channels, because I am also tallking about solute exchange, not just thermal exchange. There is no "pipe" between them.

The solutes are in low concentration in the large majority of liquid so we don't need to worry about activity coefficients being far from 1 here either.

unless magic happens and then it's saturated with ammonium sulphate - with few enough impurities that you get a meaningful ferroelectric effect from the crystals.

You are reaching the point where  Goddidit looks like a less bad explanation.

There is desalinization by freezing so solutes are being cycled back into solid phases. God is for people who want to have simplicity without having the "but no simpler than necessary phrase. One needs enough complexity to show that the system remains metastable for a long time. There need to be sealants that prevent the solids from redissolving. After a while polyserine mainly plays this role. In the abiotic stage it is whatever insoluble organic compounds are available.

To add a little complexity photocells are available to produce DC to complement the AC from the ammonium sulfate. These are anatase on calcite. The anatase is deposited from titanocene dicarbonyl dissolved in the oil phase. It is generated by gamma ray evaporation of tholin covered titanium rich refractory grains. The calcite is produced from aragonite solution. Calcite crystals are long and pointed such that they poke through the surface and serve as light tunnels for the anatase semiconductor.

37

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 19/05/2020 21:46:43 »

The paper you cite is only a thought exercise which proves that you cannot extend Moore's law back that far.

What is the proof?

The proof, which is probabilistic as are all scientific proofs, is that the time lies outside the galactic habitable zone because of low metallicity.

38

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 19/05/2020 21:37:59 »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger

" used to transfer heat between two or more fluids. "
The two fluids are...?

Two aqueous solutions of different temperature and composition.

fugacities

It's probably fair to say that , given that we are talking about very low pressures, you don't need to worry about activity coefficienst being far from 1 here.

The solutes are in low concentration in the large majority of liquid so we don't need to worry about activity coefficients being far from 1 here either.

39

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 19/05/2020 20:27:10 »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger

This exchange makes me realize that a spring emerging into a vacuum is going to build up a cone of solutes whose weight will increase the pressure in the spring. A counter flow exchanger extending radially across the surface from the base of the cone will help maintain conditions at the peripherally - not only thermally, but also with fugacities. Heat piping within the cone can maintain high thermal conductivities to prevent thermal hotspots and blowouts in the exchanger area.

40

New Theories / Re: Did life originate on a satellite of the asteroid Vesta?

« on: 19/05/2020 20:03:31 »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_exchanger