A simulation for finding the origings of life

[ShayanJ]

I remember, a year or two ago, reading about a group which were simulating the early times of Earth's creation and they wanted to see whether life naturally pops out in it. But now I can't find it again or any other news from that group. Does anyone know about such a simulation?

 

[Danger]

The only thing that I'm aware of without Googling for it is Stanley Miller's experiments back in the 50's.

 

[jim mcnamara]

It is the Miller-Urey experiment you probably looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment

 

[ShayanJ]

It is the Miller-Urey experiment you probably looking for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment

Danger mentioned that, and although it was interesting, its not what I was looking for. I was talking about a simulation run on a supercomputer. Its strange no nobody else knows about it. Maybe I misunderstood some article or the writer misunderstood a scientist!

 

[Danger]

It wouldn't surprise me at all if someone is doing it; I just haven't heard of it. It seems like a job that BOINC should take on for "distributed computing" (I work on SETI, Einstein @ Home, a global climate model, and about 4 other projects). In fact, maybe they have taken it on and that's how you learned of it. I haven't checked what they're up to recently because the stuff that I'm already doing is demanding enough.

edit: corrected a name

 

[Bandersnatch]

Perhaps it's this one you were thinking of?
http://www.evogrid.org/index.php/Main_Page
Seems pretty dead, though.

 

[ShayanJ]

Another question. How amino acids can form life?

 

[Pythagorean]

Another question. How amino acids can form life?

With the help of fatty acids. The subject is called abiogenesis. Skip to 3:48 for the good stuff

 

[Pythagorean]

As to your original question, I hadn't heard of it, but doing some googling, I found this paper that models abiogenesis in terms of fuel cells, which is an interesting idea:

• The fuel cell model of abiogenesis: a new approach to origin-of-life simulations.
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24621309/

I also found this press release about using supercomputers to simulate abiogenesis:

• Powerful supercomputer peers into the origin of life
• http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004151725.htm

Here's the actual research:

• Magnesium-Dependent Active-Site Conformational Selection in the Diels−Alderase Ribozyme
• http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja101370e

 

[Ygggdrasil]

I remember, a year or two ago, reading about a group which were simulating the early times of Earth's creation and they wanted to see whether life naturally pops out in it. But now I can't find it again or any other news from that group. Does anyone know about such a simulation?

While reading through an article at C&EN, I think I found the study you're looking for:
Wang et al. 2014. Discovering chemistry with an ab initio nanoreactor. Nat. Chem 6: 1044. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2099

Chemical understanding is driven by the experimental discovery of new compounds and reactivity, and is supported by theory and computation that provide detailed physical insight. Although theoretical and computational studies have generally focused on specific processes or mechanistic hypotheses, recent methodological and computational advances harken the advent of their principal role in discovery. Here we report the development and application of the ab initio nanoreactor—a highly accelerated first-principles molecular dynamics simulation of chemical reactions that discovers new molecules and mechanisms without preordained reaction coordinates or elementary steps. Using the nanoreactor, we show new pathways for glycine synthesis from primitive compounds proposed to exist on the early Earth, which provide new insight into the classic Urey–Miller experiment. These results highlight the emergence of theoretical and computational chemistry as a tool for discovery, in addition to its traditional role of interpreting experimental findings.

See also this writeup of the research from C&EN: http://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i45/Simulation-Technique-Finds-Reaction-Products.html