Origin of Life Revisited - Part One

 Biology is protein folding, Chemistry is something that can fill a beaker, and physics is the study of how atoms behave with regard to the electron profile.

I am convinced that in order to produce complex life, we needed evolution to work at the smallest level.  I was going with the 'Fight of the Blobs', but now physics has given me new inspiration.

As always, with me, we are talking the Scientific Method, with proof by experimentation.  Only our lefties have the luxury of coming out with the Truth, straight from lip-flapping.

The inspiration comes from all this 'Rare Earth' broo-haha.  That stuff is composed of rare metals, which is the big thing here.  We have had almost every 'ordinary' metal since the Romans.  This metal has a nice charge profile that can accumulate in veins, etc, and can be mined.  Gold, Iron, Silver, Copper, etc.  All good stuff.

In the heart of a Super Nova, we've had other metals form.  These are metals that 'Don't play well with others.', which was always my corporate annual review.  Yet, they are the most important thing for life.

We had no life on Earth until Plate Tectonics started dribbling out rare metals.  That implies that the total amount of life itself is limited by this stuff (Scaling Limits!).  A rare metal has a charge profile that is extremely active.  It does not group together, and the moment it is released, it has to combine with something, sometimes quite violently.  But, for us, it is always as a salt or oxide.  The Great Chinese Secret is that these rare metals are everywhere, but only useful when you strip off the gunk, and present it as a lump of metal.  This involves very ugly processing that kills everybody.  Who cares, all those guys smoke like chimneys.  We gave all the work to China and forgot about it.  Only now, are the brains of the West looking at how to do this safely.

This now leads to an even earlier Competition, or Battle of Wits to the Death.  Evolution is horribly cruel, and the loser gets eaten.  We now track the First Molybdenum Atom, released by Plate Tectonics.

 -- to be continued