Did Life Originated from Lightning on Some Primordial “Soup”?

 

Did Life Originated from Lightning on Some Primordial “Soup”? 

 

 

There is a very interesting article I have received in my computer when I opened it on Thursday, 15 April, 2021.  

 

 

Did lightning help spark life on Earth?

https://www.space.com/life-on-earth-sparked-by-lightning

 

My answer straight away is neither electricity nor lightning is the spark of life.

 

There is something far more than electricity that gave life. So far no one has been able to provide a satisfactory definition, let alone explain (at least to me) what exactly is life?

 

Is life something that is residing inside a body that gave it the definition of a living organism as something that respires, produces, feeds, responds to stimulus, shows movements and locomotion…etc”?

 

There are now over 100 definitions being offered on the definition of a living organism, but these definitions merely describe the properties and characteristics exhibited by something that is living or being alive.

 

 

But it is not the definition of life itself. Then what is the “vital force” or some kind of “energy” or “qi” whatever it is that causes it to exhibit these living characteristics?

 

To me life is definitely not some kind of chemistry or biochemical reactions either taking place in a physical body.

 

Neither is life something that causes DNA to become so intelligent, to be able to assemble, dissemble by themselves, to change, to duplicate, to mutate, to reproduce, including its ability to reverse a chemical pathology in certain diseases often seen in a living organism.

 

If life is just DNA and biochemistry, the question I like to ask is, then why did those chemistries instantly stops when its “life energy” leaves their chemistries?

 

 

After all, according to some scientists, life is just DNA and chemical reactions taking place in the body and nothing else? If that is the case, chemistry is chemistry, strictly according to the laws of chemistry.

 

The reactants in them merely react with each other according to the laws of chemistry and nothing more.

 

In a living body all the biological reactants – nutrients, electrolytes, salts, enzymes, hormones, proteins expressed by the DNA…etc. should continue even after life leaves these bio-chemicals if they were just chemistries?

 

In short, they should be able to proceed on their own based on known laws in biochemistry, and the organism should be able to continue to “live”?

 

 But why then did they all come to a grinding stop instantly if life is just electricity acting on the DNA, nucleic acids, sugars, amino acids, ATP, ADP, or just energy-rich phosphate bonds molecules…etc.?

 

 

Neither are nucleic acids that make up the DNA and RNA by themselves are alive. They are just chemical foot-prints of the existence of life, but not life itself

 

 

Neither can life be defined by the numerous metabolic pathways or molecular signaling we all learn about during our undergraduates in biology, biochemistry, medicine, nutrition...etc

 

 

If life is just these metabolic pathways, then why don’t they just continue to proceed without something “higher” to controls them?

 

 

Of course as someone trained in the working of a living body as in physiology, we understand that the presence of electricity is vital in the pumping action of the heart as clearly shown in ECG where mini electric impulses are conducted through the cardiac muscles via a network of conducting pathways beginning from the upper chambers (atria) of the heart  in the  sinoatrial (SA) node, then down to the lower chambers (ventricles) through the bundle of His located at the anterior-inferior end of the interatrial septum, into the ventricles  by the purkinje fibres found in the sub-endocardium.

So does electricity causes the brain and nervous system to function as shown by their presence in electroencephalography (EEG) which is an electrophysiological electrical activity demonstrated on the scalp, and also in neurotransmission.

 

Small amount of electricity in a human body and in other animals is essential for life to exist. Cells throughout the body including those in the brain and nervous system send out electrical signals making it possible for the body to move, think and feel.

 

The cells use elements like sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium in the form of ions as electrolytes with specific electrical charge to generate and to control the flow of electricity throughout the body.  Cells  are protected on the outside by a cell membrane made up of up of lipids as  a barrier that only allow certain substances to cross to reach the cell interior as well as to generate electrical currents. 

 

Resting cells are negatively charged on the inside, while on the exterior they are positively charged. This charge separation allows charged ions to flow in and out of the membrane. The flow of charges across the cell membrane then generates electrical currents in a living body.

 

 

This effect of current flow in cells is called polarization and depolarization in which opposite electrical charges are found on either side of a cell membrane causing a potential difference between what is inside and outside the cell. Depolarization is when the charge outside the cell membrane changes from positive to negative charge and from negative to positive charge inside the cell.

 

Neurons in the human brain receive electrical signals from other cells.  The neural extensions called dendrites receive and send out information to other cells for them to respond correctly.

 

However it must be noted that the electricity essential for life is very small in mill volts and does little harm. In fact if a current of about 0.25 milliamperes (mA) is applied on the arms or legs, we can feel a tingling sensation. But when we increase the current to more than 10 mA, it causes the flexor muscles and fingers to contract making the fingers to unable to release the source of current, thus causing shock, electrocution and death instead of giving life.

 

There is also no way we can raise up a dead body by passing electricity through it.

 

 

In the link above it talks about lightning in which the voltage is extremely huge triggering off life. This is contradictory to what we, or at least myself know.  

 

An average lightning flash is about 300 million volts and about 30,000 amps. Such a powerful charge or surge in electricity is highly incompatible for life.

 

Even a normal household current of just 120 volts and 15 amps can cause electrocution and death let alone lightening sparking off life.

 

Although mini amounts of electricity are essential for life for biochemistry to be possible through exchange of ions, that does not mean life is electricity or life is electricity on bio-chemicals in the body.

 

The article I received:  “Did lightning help spark life on Earth?” in the link above, reminded us of a famous experiment conducted by Stanley Miller and Urey in 1952 where they tried to stimulate conditions they considered may be seen during the time when atmosphere and oceans were formed 4,200 million years ago in his attempt to explain the chemical origin of life

 

What Miller and Urey did was they used water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen and sealed them inside a 5-litre glass flash and passed continuous electricity into the flash to simulate lightning in the primordial atmosphere on Earth.

 

After a day, the solution collected at the trap had turned pink in colour, and after a week of continuous sparkling, the solution turned deep red and turbid. 

 

Miller analyzed the composition of the product from sparkling using paper chromatography and found five amino acids – glycine, alpha and beta and possibly aspartic acid, and alpha- aminobutyric acid on the chromatographic paper

 

In a 1996 interview, Stanley Miller stated: "Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."

 

Again these chemicals present in life do not mean they are life nor have life in them. They are just lifeless organic compounds as present in all life. They are just some of the chemical ingredients of life as life foot prints, but they are not the “energy” or “life force” itself.  

 

It is just like buying a piece of meat from the market that has all the chemical ingredients in them – amino and nucleic acids, DNA, sugars, salts and electrolytes, enzymes, hormones…etc. including cells and tissues in it

 

Such a meat is far better and complete than what Miller could produce in his laboratory, but that piece of meat is still dead.

 

So our question still remains – what then is life “residing” in them that make them living within the definition of life characteristics?  

 

It is definitely neither electricity, nor they organic molecules. Neither is it the effects of electricity or lightning on any organic bio-molecules.

 

At least to my thinking, there must be an unknown non tangible “force” or some kind of “energy” higher than just electricity or lightning

 

I don’t think we can ever have the answer