Misfolded Protein

While i can see that it wouldn't make it harder for panspermia to occur, i don't think that it supports it either. It doesn't really address how difficult it would be for life to start from scratch either....it just relegates the problem to how life started on another planet (and then made the miraculous journey and inseminated Earth).

The difficulty with this question is that we have a sample size of 1 for the phenomena of 'life'. We do have many theories about how life came about, the RNA world hypothesis for one, but there are others too; the problem with all of them is that we still haven't been able to take theory and turn it into a successful experiment (i.e. no life has been made from any 'soup' of inorganic and organic molecules)...with that in mind, here is the way i see it One thing that does stand out for me is that life began almost as soon as it could, probably about 3.8 billion years ago. This at least suggests that life, given the right conditions (habitable zone + water + organic molecules), can take hold with reasonable ease. There are probably a number of things that need to come together for life to begin; it's weather or not these conditions come together in the right way that may be uncommon...or perhaps a short timeframe for life to happen, if the conditions wait too long and the planet cools too quickly, then the necessary reactions might not take place. So it may be easy for life to start, but all the necessary conditions, at the right time, in the right place, may be uncommon... Another thing, it also can't be too easy because, as far as we can tell, life only arose once here on Earth. Or, maybe life takes hold rather easily, but the evolution of complex life is difficult; it did take about 1.5 billion years for eukaryotic cells to appear. Just so it's clear, that is a VERY long time!! Consider how bacteria multiply and evolve, think of how many generations and genetic permutations these microbes must have gone through before the right cells came together. All in all, I think that life, especially complex life, to begin is probably a rare event...but it really is difficult to say......

Hi everyone, just signed up to the forums and i figured I should introduce my self...so here it is Im a uni student, soon to finish my 4th year majoring in molecular biology and biochemistry. I love science, pretty much have since i was a kid, I like reading, thinking, learning and arguing about it whenever the opportunity arises. I also like to read, mostly science and fantasy (but not really into sci-fi), I also dabble into a bit of philosophy, history and whatever else catches my attention. I have focused primarily on the biological sciences, but I also take a keen interest in particle physics. Thats the short of it...and now I'm looking forward to getting right into the discussions cheers M.P.