Lazcano

Borquez E, Cleaves HJ, Lazcano A, Miller SL (2005) Orig Life Evol Biosphere 35 79 Breuer AD (1974) Angew Chem 86 401, Int Ed 13 370... 

An article by Dworkin, Lazcano and S. Miller in the Journal of Theoretical Biology shows how much is still unclear in the search for the first informationtransferring species on Earth. The authors assume the RNA world to be a... 

In the same year, Miller and the biologist Antonio Lazcano (National Autonomous University of Mexico) spoke out against hypotheses that life could have originated at hydrothermal vents. They believe that the presence of thermophilic bacteria (the oldest life forms) does not prove that biogenesis occurred in the depths of the oceans. Stanley Miller sees a greater chance for successful pre-biotic chemistry under the conditions of a cold primeval Earth rather than at high temperatures in hydrothermal regions (Miller and Lazcano, 1995). 

Bada JL, Feglex Jr B, Miller SL, Lazcano A, Cleaves HJ, Hazen RM, Chalmers J (2007) Science 315 937... 

Lazcano, an evolutionary biologist, and Miller, an experienced prebiotic chemist, believe that the most important bottlenecks in the biogenesis process leading from the primeval soup to the RNA world, and thence to cyanobacteria, are the following ... 

In 1998, about three years after the Lazcano/Miller publication appeared, Leslie Orgel published the article which we have already mentioned above. He subjected their ideas to a critical examination and came to the rather pessimistic conclusion that some of their speculations were much too bold. 

The passage of the whole of the water in the oceans through hydrothermal systems (in about 10 million years), as discussed by Miller and Lazcano, is also not a convincing argument for a possible thermal destruction of all the biomolecules dissolved in the primeval ocean, as there could have been other smaller bodies of water on the primordial Earth which were not subject to such a passage. 

PO079 Rodriguez-Moran, M., F. Guerrero-Romero, and G. Lazcano-Burciaga. Lipid- and glucose-lowering efficacy of Plantago psyllium in type 11 diabetes. J Diabet Compile 1998 12(5) 273-278. 

It is also apparent that the anti-Darwinian movement comes not so much from the present and past Pope, but rather from side-kick zealots - see, for example, the short editorial by Holden (Holden, 2005). As for myself, I would be more sympathetic towards the creationists camp if experimental evidence were to be provided. It is not difficult to conceive what this should be simply find equally old fossils of horses, dinosaurs, hominids, snails, cynobacteria, and sword fish. As long as this simple evidence is not forthcoming, it is probably safe to be scientifically very sceptical about the creationistic view (in this sense, it is almost funny that the creatioifists lament some small gaps in the theory of evolution). If you are interested in the creationist movement in Latin America and Mexico, in particular, see the recent article by Lazcano (Lazcano, 2005). 

The claim of the inevitability of life on Earth is criticized by some authors, for example Szathmary calls it the gospel of the inevitability (Szathmdry, 2002), and Lazcano (2003) has similar views. This inevitability view has its counterpart in the notion that contingency is the basic creative force for shaping the molecular and evolutionistic constructs on Earth (which de Duve, 2002, dubbed the gospel of contingency ). It should be said that de Duve accepts contingency, but in a context other than the origin of life (de Duve, 2002). 

I believe this is possible - of course this is a bias - and in what follows this attempt will be described, based on work presented some time ago in collaboration with Varela and Lazcano (Luisi et al, 1996). This is a very simple approach to the question, which in my experience is very apt for undergraduate college students. 

The idea of describing the chemical reactions that are germane to the origin of life has a long history - particularly if one starts from Wohler s experiments in 1828 on the synthesis of urea, as recently proposed by Bada and Lazcano (2003). Wohler s reaction was a fortunate accident, in the sense that the German chemist did not have in mind any ambitious Faustian dream. In what follows some basic notions... 

A large portion of the above mentioned genes correspond to RNA and DNA polymerases. A number of data (Suttle and Ravel, 1974 Lazcano et al, 1988 1992 Frick and Richardson, 2001) suggest that a simplified replicating enzymatic repertoire - as well as a simplified version of protein synthesis - might be possible. From all this, the idea that a single polymerase could play multiple roles as a DNA polymerase, a transcriptase, and a primase, is conceivable in the very early cells (Luisi et al., 2002). 

Bada, J. L. and Lazcano, A. (2003). Prebiotic soup - revisiting the Miller experiment. Science, 300, 745-6. 

Islas, S., Becerra, A., Luisi, P. L., and Lazcano, A. (2004). Comparative genomics and the gene complement of a minimal cell. Orig. Life Evol. Biosph., 34 (1-2), 243-56. 

Lazcano, A. (2004). An answer in search of a question how life began the genesis of life on Earth, by William Day. Astrobiology, 4,469-71. 

Lazcano, A. (2005). Teaching evolution in Mexico preaching to the choir. Science, 310, 787-9. 

Lazcano, A., Valverde, V., Hernandez, G., et al. (1992). On the early emergence of reverse transcription theoretical basis and experimental evidence. J. Mol. Evol, 35,... 

Luisi, P. L., Lazcano, A., and Varela, F. (1996). In Defining Life the Central Problem in Theoretical Biology, ed. M. Rizzotti. University of Padova, pp. 149-65. 

Luisi, P. L., Oberholzer, T., and Lazcano, A. (2002). The notion of a DNA minimal cell a general discourse and some guidelines for an experimental approach. Helv. Chim. Acta, 85 (6), 1759-77. 

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