Friday, May 28, 2010

Uhhh ...

... am I missing something out of this article?
Inside many undersea hydrothermal vents, magnesium-rich rocks react with sea water. Such reactions create a heat source that could drive miniature convection currents in nearby pores in the rock, claim Christof Mast and Dieter Braun of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. They propose that such convection could concentrate nucleotides, strands of DNA, and polymerase, providing a setting that would promote replication.
Supposed model for DNA replication without life. Reading this it looks like they've found an environmental equivalent to the conditions found in PCR. Yippee. Only problem is ... where is that naturally-formed, pre-life polymerase coming from?

2 comments:

Genomic Repairman said...

Come on man, it came from make believe. Besides reading the New Scientist will rot your brain and give you cavities.

Tom said...

So that's why my tooth aches ...