San Diego State Viable Habitat for any Living Creature in the Universe Questions

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Homework 11 Instructions:

• Read/ Review Evolutionary Analysis (Herron & Freeman): Chapter 17: The Origins of Life and Precambrian Evolution.
• Answer all of the questions below and submit your answers using the link at the bottom of the page. You must answer all of the questions and submit them in a single document in order to earn full credit for the assignment. Note: you must submit your own work. Although you can work with each other, you must write your answers in your own words and submit your own assignment.

Question 1. It has been said that life could develop on Earth only because Earth is just the right distance from the Sun. Any closer, and Earth would have been too hot (like Mercury or Venus); any farther away, there would not have been sufficient solar energy for the evolution of living things. Recently, communities of organisms have been found in deep-sea vents on Earth. These communities seem to get all of their energy from the vents rather than the Sun. That is, the vent communities derive energy from the inner heat of Earth (which is provided ultimately by radioactivity). Even more recently, communities of bacteria have been found deep in subsurface rock. How does this discovery inform consideration of whether life might exist on other planets or moons that are not at “the right distance” from the Sun?

Question 2. The SETI project (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a research program that searches for intelligent life on other planets, using the assumptions that (a) intelligent life has probably evolved elsewhere in the universe, and (b) it should be detectable by scanning regions of the sky for anomalous radio signals. A fundamental uncertainty in this endeavor is the probability that any life at all will evolve on a planet, and if so, whether it will develop a civilization that uses radio waves. On Earth, how soon after Earth became habitable did life appear? How long did it take eukaryotes until eukaryotes appeared? How long until intelligent life appeared? The use of radio waves? (You may want to consult your textbook for some of this information.)

In your opinion, do the answers indicate that the evolution of life (of any kind) on other Earth-like planets is probable or improbable? How about the evolution of intelligent life? How about advanced civilization and radio communication?

Question 3. Suppose you are trekking through remote Greenland on a day off from your summer job at a scientific research camp, and you find an unusual layer of sedimentary rock that is not mapped on your geological charts. You suspect that this rock might be older than the 3.7-billion-year-old rocks from elsewhere in Greenland (take a look at Figure 17.13 in your textbook). What would you do to determine whether these rocks have any evidence of ancient life? What results would show that life was indeed present before 3.7 billion years ago?

Question 4. The interpretation that the amino acids found in the Murchison meteorite were, in fact, extra-terrestrial in origin came from what line(s) of evidence? (You may want to review section 17.2 in your textbook.)

Question 5. Match the following terms with the correct corresponding phrase below: lateral or horizontal gene transfer; Oparin-Haldane model; ribozyme; LUCA (or cenancestor); RNA World

1. The last common ancestor of all living organisms:
2. An enzyme that is made of RNA rather than of protein:
3. A hypothetical time when life on Earth was based on RNA:
4. A model that proposes that the early Earth possessed all the necessary ingredients for the origins of life:
5. Movement of a gene from one species or lineage to another:

Question 6. The two major hypotheses for the origin of organic macromolecules on Earth are abiogenesis following the Oparin-Haldane model (terrestrial origin) and panspermia (an extra-terrestrial hypothesis). Which of the two hypotheses do you find the most convincing and why?