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A Bedside Story of Creation

& Evolution of Life -1

What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of world. - Albert Einstein

Celebrated scientist Stephen Hawking created ripples one time again when he observed that God has no role in the saga of creation. He said: in distant past there was nothing anywhere. Energy was radiating in space. A part of the energy was getting converted into particles. The particles transformed into masses. Galaxies, stars and solar systems were formed.

Vidhata was in deep meditation. Energy was continually radiating from his aura , and getting dispersed in the space. A mass attracted the attention of Vidhata. It was earth--- characterized by violent explosions of volcanoes, intermittent lightning and continual torrential rains and strong winds—for centuries and millenia, as if time had stopped. There was no layer of ozone in the periphery of the earth. Presence of Oxygen was doubtful. Ultraviolet rays of sun were bathing the surface of the earth unhindered. The photo-chemical properties of this radiation had enriched the covering layer of the earth with highly reactive molecules which were kept far away from a state of chemical equilibrium. The envelope was composed of a mixture of carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen and ammonia. These particles accumulated in the seas and oceans formed radioactive rays by the torrential rains. The particles became highly reactive chemically in the presence of the energy of electromagnetic rays and high temperature. Island like structures of primordial soup were formed in the oceans, Compounds such as hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde were formed in the primordial soup, which readily got transformed into amino acids, sugars, purines and pyrimidines. Sugar, pyrimidines, purines and phosphate organized to form nucleotides.

Among these reactive particles, arose such groups of molecules, in very small quantities, which were autocatalytic. Appearance of these particles crated far reaching effects. They turned suitable particles away from producing other particles towards their own production. The appearance of these catalytic particles turned chemical reactions towards polymerization. Units of amino acids polymerized to form proteins and those of nucleotides to form Polynucleotide chains (Nucleic acids) here was a uniqueness in the constituents They could tolerate only a certain range of temperature,, configuration and organization of each chain. Beyond this range the molecules get denatured and inactive.

This system was the precursor of life. Vidhata greeted life.

There were some photo-sensitive particles in the system. Electrons located in the outer orbit of such particles got excited by the solar energy and were displaced from their orbitals and were transferred to such catalytic particles, which were able to accept electrons from relatively higher energy level. As a result these catalytic particles got reduced and the particles losing electrons oxidized. Thus solar energy is converted into chemical bond energy and incorporated in the biological system as reduced molecules. Energy is transferred from reduced molecules to molecules at relatively lower energy level. In the process of energy transfer free energy is released which is available to physiochemical processes. Thus a oxidation-reduction process resulting into transfer and storage of energy got entrenched in the system.

Another process came into existence in parallel. The loss of electrons by photosensitive particles is compensated by transfer of electrons from other particles such as ferrous ions,Hydrogen sulphide and water. Ferrous ions are converted to ferric ions and hydrogen sulphide is precipitated as sulphur. Oxygen released as a consequence of breakup of water molecules got dispersed in the atmosphere. This event is a milestone in the saga of the evolution of life as we as the planet. Electrons released in this process are transferred to carbon dioxide and lead to synthesis of carbohydrates. The electron transfer is mediated by a complex coordinate ELECTRON TRANSFER CHAIN. This proved to be a development of far reaching consequence Processes of conversion of simple inorganic compounds to an array of complex organic compounds were established. Atmospheric carbon dioxide gets fixed in the biological system as energy-rich carbohydrates As a result carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in the prebiotic era came down and oxygen content increased to stabilize at the present level. These developments had revolutionary effects. Presence of oxygen in the atmosphere led to the development of ozone layer.

Now it was not possible anymore for the solar electromagnetic waves to penetrate the atmosphere to reach earth surface unhindered. Primordial soup disappeared.. Presence of free oxygen in the atmosphere was a fatal pollution for the then organisms which were anaerobes. They perished in large quantities. But this catastrophe was an opportunity too for the biological system. The survivors developed an electron transfer chain so that electrons could be transferred to oxygen. The significant advantage of this system is that energy is released in small graduated steps. As a result the cell was spared the consequence of large fluctuation of physical parameters; On the other hand free energy could be used proficiently in metabolic activities. Process of electron transfer in several steps resulted in the production of a number of intermediary compounds. These would be available for the synthesis of compounds such as alcohols, organic acids, amino acids, fats, nucleotides and other group of substances. Amino acids and nucleotides polymerise into proteins and nucleic acids in the presence of suitable enzymes. Organisms without photosensitive particles These organisms have developed systems to obtain and process organic compounds for food.

The most significant development was that nucleic acids with the mediation of proteins emerged as the control center of all the metabolic activities of a living organism. Development of a characteristic of an organism is accomplished in a series of coordinated chemical reactions. For example, the color of skin of man is expressed by a certain chemical compound known as – melanin. The synthesis of this compound is made possible by a series of reactions. Each step of the series is catalyzed by a specific enzyme. Synthesis of an enzyme is mediated by a specific part of DNA. These parts are known as genes. DNA acts as template for strands of another nucleic acid known as ribonucleic acid (RNA). The strands of RNA make possible the synthesis of proteins by specifying the sequence of amino acids. As a result specific proteins are synthesized. Proteins act as enzymes. The physiochemical reactions are intertwined in such manner that the intermediate compounds or end products of one series serves as the primary reactant or intermediate compound of another series of reactions. Each of them is enzymatically controlled. Thus complex changes are made possible at ordinary temperature and pressure by exchange of energy by enzymes.

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14-Feb-2016

More by :  Ganganand Jha

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