Nonsensical response. What has duplicating one totally artificial process by another artificial one have to do with the relevance of either of these to natural processes?
The direct answer is that gold seems to be able to grow more pure nano particles than silver. I believe that is an important consideration.
But one of the necessary steps in abiogenesis is
growth of bio chemical polymers. We know carbon is a major ingredient in living things. But it's not just carbon that we need, we need nano scale carbon. But how do you get nano scale carbon?
a) We have demonstrated that gold and light (heat) have the ability to grow nano scale carbon particles.
We know that abiogenesis requires
proteins.
b) We have demonstrated that gold and light (heat) have the ability to grow proteins.
No. Gold nanoparticles appear to be a totally artificial state of gold that does not occur in nature. The interest is in plasmon-mediated synthesis, apparently, a way of getting light to take part in chemical reactions. But there is zero evidence of these things appearing in nature and until there is, there is no basis for you to claim gold may have relevance to abiogenesis.
I agree, but that may support my claim that gold at nano scales may have been deposited long ago by cosmic dust from novae and is a rare metal with exceptional qualities.
But plasmon-induced synthesis is something I'd like to know more about, I must admit.[/QUOTE]
Gold nanostructures in general and gold nanorods in particular due to their plasmon resonance has been employed for many applications, such as biosensors.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925346717300046
c) Gold nanorods have a range of plasmon resonances depending on their size and shape at nano scales.
I am not proposing that gold IS the origin of abiogenesis, I am proposing that gold may have played a part in it due to its exceptional naturally functional properties. We know that water (or some liquid) assists in the formation of cell like structures (Hazen), that only
As to evidence, we have precious little evidence of how abiogenesis actually occurred, how many steps were required, what the conditions were at the time, and the composition of the
soup which provided the necessary bio-chemicals to form self assembling polymers which were able to duplicate themselves.
I believe everyone will agree that abiogenesis can be considered a rare probabilistic event which required a unique combination of conditions and ingredients. However I read that there may have been many tries at abiogenesis, but Darwinian evolution (natural selection) made them non-viable for sustained reproduction.
As far as I know there have been a fractal function as an early replication method, which were then replaced by RNA information carriers, and finally a combination of DND and RNA produced a living organism that was able to use its environment for energy and sustained self replication (reproduction).
Then there is the question of the part plasmon plays. This can range from UV light which already are creating larger, more complex particles and molecules incosmic clouds, to visible light, but also to heat (a thermal energy) in places which receive no sunlight at all, such as around black smokers in the deep ocean, or deep in the earth's mantle.
Some metals, such as
copper[4] and
gold,
[5] have electronic interband transitions in the visible range, whereby specific light energies (colors) are absorbed, yielding their distinct color.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmon
(A little aside; the red panes in cathedral windows are made from gold nano particles.) Curiously, none of the glassblowers had a clue how or why this happens.
No one bothered to find out.
Because of the extraordinary qualities of gold, and it's apparent usefulness when we try to approximate (imitate) certain natural conditions in laboratory settings, is it not an obvious question, that when something works as we expected it, then this is an indication that it may possibly be a
part of the original process itself.
Can we look at this from both sides?
I am sure there may be critical arguments against this proposition. But off-hand is see no fatal flaw in my proposition that gold may have been instrumental in the abiogenesis of life on earth.
If we look at it from a perspective that whatever we can do in a laboratory can never approach the: some
2 trillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion chemical reactions that have taken place on earth alone and before that, at a universal scale an additional 10 billion years of chemical processes.
I have not heard a logical argument that proves my proposition is a priori false.
