origins and development of earliest life Flashcards
how did life originate on earth?
building blocks of life and assembling them
prebiotic chemistry
energy sources and metabolism
copying and replication
what happened to earths first atmosphere?
disappearing into the void. early life atmosphere was volcanic outgassing as crust starts to differentiate with H, He, water, CO2 CH4 and N2.
what is prebiotic chemistry?
A molecule that is believed to be involved in the processes leading to the origin of life
what did Darwin hypothesise about prebiotic origins?
but if we could conceive in some warm little bond with ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat and electricity, we could chemically form a protein.
what is the Murchison Meteorite?
carbonaceous chondrite, more than 500 molecular structures were analysed- amino acids were racemic, left and right, extra terrestrial, not formed from the earth. bacteria can survive in space.
what is the Fischer Tropf process?
chemical process for making liquid hydrocarbons from CO and H gas.
what are the 3 important forms of biological energy?
energy for chemical synthesis and force generation stored as ATP
reducing potential, carried in form of easily transferable electrons
energy for chemical synthesis and enzyme activity
what is glycolysis?
can separate different amount of sugars. energy investment phase. substrate complex released products and cycles through.
what is biological nitrogen fixation?
nitrate is a limiting nutrient, so nature has a way t produce nitrogen. nitrogenase used to cause nitrogen to form ammonia.
how do cofactors work?
cofactors aid reactions by transfer of chemical groups. electrons, O H and CO2 and various functional groups. ligands donate 2 electrons to metal-ligand interaction.
why do transition metals make good enzymes?
wide range of oxidation states. can facilitate redox reactions through electron transfer.
how does replication occur?
DNA encodes stucture of proteins, RNA translates DNA code into portiens. protens copy DNA and tranlate DNA to RNA.
why do some believe the world used to be RNA only?
RNA has catalytic functions. RNA sequence can be up to 95 amino acids old.
why could the mitochondria with external?
has own DNA, double membrane etc. therefore gould have been engulfed by a cell. process of endosymbiosis- infolding of the plasma
why might the mitochondria be a bad sign?
programmed death cell, may be the route of many diseases.
