A quiz. Do you recognise these polymers?
You’ve almost certainly heard of all three. Good luck recognising any one of them.
mollwollfumble said:
A quiz. Do you recognise these polymers?
- - CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O -
- - CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O -
- - CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O -
You’ve almost certainly heard of all three. Good luck recognising any one of them.
Give up?
The answer could have profound implications for the question of life, the universe, and everything.
I don’t know enough about chemistry to recognise them.
Hangon, I’ve only just seen this give me a bit of time.
So the first one is the polymer of glycine. Glycine has been detected in space in various places.
This is difficult.
Number 3 appears to be a polymer of “malonamic acid” which I’m sure I’ve not heard of before and it took some digging to find it. Very obscure.
Okay the last one has me buggered, so well done. I think it might be a polymer of methadiaminoacetic acid but I can find no reference to any such thing existing.
A quiz. Do you recognise these polymers?
– CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O - – CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O - – CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O -You’ve almost certainly heard of all three. Good luck recognising any one of them.
dv said:
So the first one is the polymer of glycine. Glycine has been detected in space in various places.
Yes. A protein. Very good. :-) Glycine is by far the most common amino acid found in Miller-Urey, and the smallest. We can expect the first proteins to look like this.
The second is a polyurea. Urea is also a chemical found in large quantities in Miller-Urey.
The third is a polyimide. “Polyimides have been in mass production since 1955. With their high heat-resistance, polyimides enjoy diverse applications in roles demanding rugged organic materials.”
Application. These are so similar. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to suppose that polyureas and polyimides were found amongst the first proteins. It could even be that some alien life developed to use polyurea or polyimide instead of protein. Side chains on these would be similar to side chains on proteins. They would fold differently to proteins because of the different bond angles (more frequent 270 degree angles in polyimide and fewer in polyurea) but could be just as effective as enzymes.
Or perhaps the first proteins had urea or imide subgroups. It seems appropriate to investigate whether these composite polymers would more easily fold into useful enzymes than proteins.
mollwollfumble said:
A quiz. Do you recognise these polymers?
- - CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O – CH2 – NH – C=O -
- - CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O – NH – CH2 – NH – C=O -
- - CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O – NH – C=O – CH2 – C=O -
You’ve almost certainly heard of all three. Good luck recognising any one of them.
dv said:
So the first one is the polymer of glycine. Glycine has been detected in space in various places.
Yes. A protein. Very good. :-) Glycine is by far the most common amino acid found in Miller-Urey, and the smallest. We can expect the first proteins to look like this.
The second is a polyurea. Urea is also a chemical found in large quantities in Miller-Urey.
The third is a polyimide. “Polyimides have been in mass production since 1955. With their high heat-resistance, polyimides enjoy diverse applications in roles demanding rugged organic materials.”
Application. These are so similar. It doesn’t stretch the imagination to suppose that polyureas and polyimides were found amongst the first proteins. It could even be that some alien life developed to use polyurea or polyimide instead of protein. Side chains on these would be similar to side chains on proteins. They would fold differently to proteins because of the different bond angles (more frequent 270 degree angles in polyimide and fewer in polyurea) but could be just as effective as enzymes.
Or perhaps the first proteins had urea or imide subgroups. It seems appropriate to investigate whether these composite polymers would more easily fold into useful enzymes than proteins.
> 270
Oops, 120.
Interesting thoughts