Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 07:33:52 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Ancient Crash, Epic Wave
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/14/healthscience/web.1114meteor.php?page=1

 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

D I A M O N D S

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 [6]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: D I A M O N D S  (Read 5608 times)
0 Members and 66 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #75 on: March 19, 2009, 11:27:16 am »









                                                 Diamond May Be Life's Birthstone






Michael Schirber
Astrobiology Magazine
SPACE.com
Sept. 25, 2008

One of the hurdles in origin-of-life theories is that the pieces that make up complex biomolecules do not readily come together by themselves. A group of scientists proposes that diamonds provided a kind of "workbench" for biomolecule manufacturing on early Earth.
 
Not long after its formation, our planet was — according to astrobiologists — awash in a primordial soup that contained the rudimentary ingredients of life. The fly in the "soup" theory, however, is that the small molecular bits likely needed outside help in order to latch together into the long, complex biomolecules that living organisms use.


Some scientists have suggested that the surfaces of minerals on the early Earth provided an organizing platform upon which the building blocks of life could assemble.� Recent studies of diamond suggest that its surface would be especially good for this.


"Diamond is totally non-toxic, an excellent biomaterial and certainly the only naturally existing material that is completely biocompatible on all levels — presumably the best of all possible platforms for the formation of life," said Andrei Sommer from the University of Ulm in Germany.


Sommer and his colleagues discovered that a certain type of diamond, called hydrogenated diamond, imposes a rigid order on molecules near its surface. They suggest, in a recent issue of the journal Crystal Growth and Design, that this diamond-mediated order helped fit together the pieces that led to the emergence of life. [This news story was reported by LiveScience.]
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 [6]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy