Residue of Life - Democratic Underground

Mr. McD

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Thu Aug-03-06 06:14 PM
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Residue of Life

Ten years ago, an international team of scientists reported evidence, in a controversial cover story in the journal Nature, that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago--400 million years earlier than previously thought. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors report that the evidence is stronger than ever.

An unanswered question is how life originally could have arisen from lifeless molecules and evolved into the already sophisticated isotope fractioning life forms recorded in the Akilia rocks.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article2039.html

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htuttle

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Thu Aug-03-06 06:27 PM
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1. Where in that timeline would "Earth Mk I" have been destroyed?

If the latest, best theory on the origin of the Moon holds true, then the 'first Earth' that formed in this orbit was destroyed (or 'remelted') in a collision with another planetoid, with our current Earth and Moon forming as the result.

I thought that resulted in our 'losing' about a billion years of time for evolution since the creation of our current Sun, which I thought was something like 4-5 billion years ago. But that doesn't seem to leave enough time for all this to happen.

I'm confused. :dunce:

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Dead_Parrot

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Thu Aug-03-06 09:48 PM
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2. Current guesstimates say 4.53 billion years ago...

With the age of the sun being 4.57 billion years, - So the two would "only" be 40,000,000 years apart. :) Add another 40 mil or so for the crust to cool and things to settle down, and you could probaly set a limit for "life" at anytime from 4.49 billion years ago...

Interestingly, this new estimate would put the origins of life in the Late Heavy Bombardment, so I have to wonder if the two are connected in some way.

I'll need some beers before I go down that route, though. :D

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Tesha

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Mon Aug-07-06 11:18 AM
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4. Earth Mk I was destroyed shortly after Windows Mk I was developed.

They were using Windows Mk I Vista to control their
total conversion nuclear energy reactors...

Tesha

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NNadir

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Fri Aug-04-06 08:10 PM
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3. Interesting. Thanks.

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