Newsletter 067 - December 2020

Table of Contents

Future Talks 2

Websites for You to Check 3

Podcasts 3

Reading Test 4

First Life 5

Poem about the coronavirus 10

Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society 13

Pinner and District RSPB 14

Interesting Websites 15

Recommended Reading 15

Picture of the Month 16Page of 1 16

Future Talks Meetings are currently online using Zoom on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month at 10:00. The link will be sent out to everybody before the meeting.

If anybody wants to join the Geology meetings they are on the 4th Tuesday of the month at 10:00. If you are not on the mailing list let me know so that I can send a link

Next one on the Tuesday 22nd December

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Date Title Speaker

02/12/2020 Gold, Frankincense and Mirrh Carol Mitchell

16/12/2020 Quizz Pat Furr

06/01/2021 Mini Nuclear Power

Wind and Solar

David Brown

General Discussion

20/01/2021 The Geology of the Chilterns and the impact of HS2.

Haydon Bailey

TBA Gravity and Me - Jim Al-Khalili DVD

Len Fenton

TBA The Mystery of Dark Energy DVD

Len Fenton

TBA Combat Survival Bob Young

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Websites for You to Check The Oxford vaccine and how it works Myths and truths about winter car insurance When Christmas was Cancelled How does the vaccine work Power Medieval Book Production

Podcasts Futurenauts

If anybody knows of any good Podcasts please send me the link.

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Reading Test

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First Life This talk was given by Gloria O’Leary at the last online meeting

Our planet is 4.5 billion years old. All life on Earth evolved from a common ancestor that first appeared roughly 3.5-3.8 billion years ago. The Earth was a different place then. The continents were just beginning to form, the days were just 4 hours long because Earth spun much more quickly and the land was hostile and volcanic. For about 3 billion years the only life were single celled organisms. Palaeontologists call these years the ‘boring billions.’ Then about 600 million years ago things changed dramatically. The catalyst for this change was the world’s greatest ice age. The Earth was almost completely covered in ice. The thawing of the planet saw the rise of a huge variety of new and complex life forms. This first early stage was followed by the famous Cambrian explosion of 542 million years ago.

To study the evidence of ancient life requires finding fossils. But how does this happen with soft-bodied organisms? The organism first falls to the bottom of the ocean where it is covered with fine sediment like mud or volcanic ash. If the environment is calm enough, this blanket-like sediment can record an impression of the soft-bodied organism. So palaeontologists focus their searches on rare rocks formed near ancient volcanoes that spewed tons of ash into the sea or near areas where ancient rivers dumped their waters and mud into the ocean.

This works for ancient multi-cellular organisms but what about fossils of ancient single-celled organisms? Such fossils are extremely rare but can be formed when cells are exposed to silica dissolved in water.

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Silica is the main ingredient in glass and the skeletons of some animals like sponges. In the past dissolved silica was much more common in the sea. If the chemical conditions are just right it can harden in water and the solidified silica crystals create a casing around the single-celled organism and preserve it for billions of years.

But do these ancient cells give us a picture of the first life of Earth? Unfortunately not, for they are too fully formed and complex to be the first life. So palaeontologists had to leave the rocks and go into the lab. The first thing to ask is what is considered to be life. There are four characteristics: it must eat, it must be able to reproduce, it must respond to its environment and it must demonstrate an organized body structure.

With these criteria scientists in the 1950s started combining chemicals they thought were present in the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere 3.5 billion years ago. Initial experiments involved hydrogen, ammonia and methane as well as an electric spark to simulate lightening. These early experiments produced complex compounds called amino acids which when linked together form the proteins that make up all living cells. Then they used different starting chemicals and variations of exposure to hot and cold temperatures that would have occurred 3.5 billion years ago. These yielded even more varieties of amino acids as well as many different sugars, phosphates and nucleic acid bases that are the building blocks of DNA. These experiments suggested that components of first life could have come from the chemical odds and ends present on Earth 3.5 billion years ago. There is even more evidence that these components of life can form spontaneously. Studies of the chemistry on the surfaces of meteorites have revealed that they contain a number of carbon-based compounds called organic compounds. Some

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have been found to contain more than 70 amino acids as well as sugars and fats and even some components of DNA. Therefor if this kind of chemical manufacturing can happen on asteroids in the void of space, it could also have taken place in the early Earth environment. But all of this doesn’t explain why they all came together to form a cell in the first place.

Nobody is sure where all the chemical reactions that created life actually took place. Most scientists look for life’s beginnings in watery places, but ancient oceans and lakes have been reshaped many times over billions of years. Scientists may never know but they can hypothesise, especially when they discover species today that resemble what they think first life forms could have looked like.

In the 1970s marine biologists discovered something they thought impossible. In superheated waters around deep water volcanic vents they found entire communities of single-celled organisms living in this supposedly hostile environment. These structures are known as hydrothermal vents. The water around them is searingly hot (300C) and filled with chemicals that would be toxic to most life forms today. They are also in complete darkness. This superheated water mixes with the surrounding cold water and a short distance from the vent where the temperature is a relatively mild 120C you find bacteria that can cope with the temperature and use the chemicals as a source of energy. So are these the places where life first formed? It depends on the vent. Lab work under these conditions showed that the nucleic acids needed for DNA would have been destroyed.

But there is a second type of vent discovered in 2000 in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean that is not nearly as hot known as chemical seeps. They form when certain types of rock react with sea water. The rocks crack and let in sea water, sometimes so deep that it becomes superheated. This water then boils and releases huge

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amounts of gases like hydrogen, methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. The hot water rises carrying the dissolved chemicals and cools when it reaches the opening of the vent. So we have water that is warm and rich in life-friendly compounds. Some of these minerals carried up tend to solidify when they mix with the cold sea water and form complex structures full of tiny compartments. These could have been the ideal places for chemical compounds to concentrate and combine and form early life in an enclosed environment. Plus the chemical differences between the compartments and the surrounding water creates an electrical difference like in a battery which could have provided the energy to drive the chemical reactions in the compartments.

Hydrothermal vents and chemical seeps are fascinating but are not the only suggestions to explain first life. Some scientists believe life began on the land. Cells have membranes surrounding them to keep the good bits of the cell inside and the surrounding bad bits out. These researchers suggest that the chemistry of life began encased in a primitive version of these oily membranes from the very start. They argue that a single drop of ancient oily substance stirred into water would have done the trick. The components that make up these oils have been detected on meteorites. Scientists playing with these chemicals have shown that when tiny spheres of oils form in water where life’s chemical components are in high concentration, these spheres can engulf them and increase in size. These little oily balls bobbing in water would have been effectively turned into drifting chemical factories. With a little internal organization these tiny factories could have absorbed materials from the outside environment as fuel to keep them going. This is plausible until you try it in the lab. These capsules simply fall apart in salty water. But in fresh water, they form easily.

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So maybe life formed in a fresh water environment, but where? Ancient fresh water lagoons on volcanic islands hold the most promise. The shallow water would have been warm, the volcanoes can release the necessary chemicals and nutrients and volcanic storm clouds can provide the water, ash and chemicals and essential bolts of lightening. The ancient volcanic island theory is enticing but the evidence remains elusive.

There is one final theory of the origins of the first life. Some scientists believe that it arrived from outer space. Many of the critical life compounds can form in ice on dust grains in environments with no air at all. Comets fit the bill perfectly. It is not impossible to imagine that small pieces of comets could break off and eventually land on Earth. But while possible, few scientists believe it is a plausible explanation. Dozens of experiments have shown that life could have arisen without any extraterrestrial input. There are much simpler explanations rooted to this planet.

However and wherever it may have occurred, life on our planet first formed as little chemical factories that possessed an organized structure, an ability to feed and behaviours that drew them to areas where they could absorb their vital chemical food.

But how did these first chance organisations of chemical compounds manage to replicate? Scientists have found that there are certain strands of nucleic acids which will spontaneously assemble new strands provided the right conditions are present. These strands, known as RNA, can carry genetic information that tells a cell how to organize itself. Experiments suggest these early strands of RNA were also responsible for reproducing itself. When two strands of RNA are placed together in a confined area, one strand will spontaneously use the other as a template to construct a third strand that is a copy of the template. This fascinating behaviour of RNA is

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called replication and may hold the key to the fascinating manner by which the earliest life forms reproduced more of themselves. Researchers working with these strands also discovered that when they confine the RNA in a sphere of lipid, the sphere will grow as it encounters and absorbs smaller lipid structures. When they shoved the RNA carrying lipid spheres through thin holes the size of those found in coastal volcanic rocks, they found that larger spheres split into smaller spheres, each carrying strands of RNA. Also, lipid spheres with RNA have much more tense surfaces than those that don’t have RNA. The increased tension leads the spheres to compete actively for empty lipid spheres in the surrounding environment. So RNA-carrying spheres with strands that could replicate the fastest and create the most surface tension would have collected the most lipids and divided more frequently. This may have been the first evolutionary pressure for living cells. This research also provides an answer why all cells today contain RNA.

Palaeontologists and biochemists will go on looking for clues that tell us just how life began on our planet, what the early forms of life were like and why and how one thing created circumstances that led to another. But once life got going, it rapidly exploded in abundance and dramatically changed Earth forever.

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Poem about the coronavirus  By PAM AYRES

I’m normally a social girl I love to meet my mates But lately with the virus here we can’t go out the gates. You see, we are the ‘oldies’ now

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We need to stay inside If they haven’t seen us for a while They’ll think we’ve upped and died. They’ll never know the things we did Before we got this old There wasn’t any FaceBook So not everything was told. We may seem sweet old ladies Who would never be uncouth, But we grew up in the 60s – If you only knew the truth! There was sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll The pill and miniskirts We smoked, we drank, we partied And were quite outrageous flirts. Then we settled down, got married And turned into someone’s mum, Somebody’s wife, then nana, Who on earth did we become? We didn’t mind the change of pace Because our lives were full But to bury us before we’re dead Is like red rag to a bull! So here you find me stuck inside For 4 weeks, maybe more I finally found myself again Then I had to close the door! It didn’t really bother me I’d while away the hour I’d bake for all the family But I’ve got no flaming flour!

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Now Netflix is just wonderful I like a gutsy thriller I’m swooning over Idris Or some random sexy killer. At least I’ve got a stash of booze For when I’m being idle There’s wine and whisky, even gin If I’m feeling suicidal! So, let’s all drink to lockdown To recovery and health And hope this awful virus Doesn’t decimate our wealth. We’ll all get through the crisis And be back to join or mates Just hoping I’m not far too wide   To fit through the flaming gates!

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Lectures Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society Meetings are currently on Zoom. If you would like to join, and are not an HHGS member, please let Sheppy know so that you can be sent the link. Non members can have three free meetings. After that we would want you to become a member.

Second Wednesday of the month. Login at 19:45

Date Title Speaker09/12/2020 Charles Lyell: Father of Geology and

Aspiring PoetDr Adelene Buckland (KCL)

13/01/2021 The Surrey Earthquake Swarm Dr Stephen Hicks (Imperial College London)

10/02/2021 Secrets from the Lady of the Lake: structure, sedimentology and evolution of rockfall talus slopes in the Brecon Beacons, Wales.

Dr Alastair Curry (University of Hertforshire)

10/03/2021 The effects of stratigraphy on the London Underground

Dr Jonathan Paul (Imperial)

14/04/2021 Quaternary Rivers and Glaciers in Midland and Eastern England – conflicting views and observable evidence

Professor Jim Rose (Royal Holloway)

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Pinner and District RSPB St John the Baptist Church Parish Hall, Church Lane, Pinner, HA5 3AA Map

Second Thursday of the month

Start at 20:00 unless otherwise stated

Members £2.50, Visitors £3.50

NO MEETINGS UNTIL JANUARY

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Date Title Speaker

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Interesting Websites Hillingdon U3A

NASA

Institute of Physics Lectures

Recommended Reading The Body - Bill Bryson

Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

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Picture of the Month

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