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Origin of Life & Radiocarbon Dating

Terms in this set (12)

Describe the Miller-Urey experiment. What did they demonstrate?
-Simulating the early planet atmosphere
-Water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen gas, and carbon dioxide
-Energy with lightning; collect molecules
-Found amino acids that build protein that build us can be made in oxygen-less environments
Describe the six characteristics that all life today shares.
1. DNA
2. RNA
3. Protein
4. ATP
5. Lipid Membrane
6. Cell Division
Explain what radiocarbon dating is. Include a graph that depicts the decay of carbon 14.
-Using carbon and remaining carbon 14 to determine an object's age
-Carbon 14 can be represented with a graph of exponential decay
When and how did prokaryotes come to be on planet earth? Describe the events that followed their appearance.
-3.5 billion year ago
-Started with cyanobacteria that started photosynthesis
-Produced oxygen to lead mass extinction and led to aerobic bacteria
-Fill new niches
Explain the theory of endosymbiosis. Provide 5 pieces of evidence to support this theory.
-Large host cells have the capability to engulf smaller cells to have them live inside
1. Current mitochondria and chloroplasts are the size of bacteria
2. Mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own dna
3. They make proteins
4. Mitochondria and chloroplasts divide by binary fission (like bacteria)
5. Outer membrane differs; their inner is like bacteria, and their outer is like eukaryotes.
6. They have ribosomes.
Describe how the endomembrane system resulted in eukaryotic cells.
-Folding of the cell; it flips the proteins
-Prokaryotes go through the endomembrane system and create eukaryotes
List the four stages of life's origin.
1. Organic monomers evolve from inorganic compounds.
2. Organic polymers joined.
3. Protocells/protobionts form from enclosed polymers.
4. DNA formed by protobionts replicating.
Why were ancient cyanobacteria important for the evolution of other living organisms?
Cyanobacteria added oxygen to the atmosphere so anaerobic prokaryotes died.
Define the last universal common ancestor.
An ancestor common to all organisms that live, and have lived, on Earth.
Define primordial soup hypothesis.
The first stage in the origin of life was evolution of simple organic molecules from the Earth's atmosphere.
Define protocell/protobiont.
Organic polymers enclosed in a membrane.
Define RNA-first hypothesis.
Only RNA needed to form the first cell.
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