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Pitkänen, M., Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

Article

Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

Matti Pitkänen 1

Abstract

Two highly interesting findings providing insights about the origins of life have emerged. The
group led by Thomas Carell has made an important step in the understanding the origins of life. They
have identified a mechanism leading to the generation of purines A and G which besides pyrimidines
A,T (U) are the basic building bricks of DNA and RNA. The crucial step is to make the solution
involved slightly acidic by adding protons. For year later I learned that a variant of Urey-Miller
experiment with simulation of shock waves perhaps generated by extraterrestrial impacts using laser
pulses generates formamide and this in turn leads to the generation of all 4 RNA bases. There is
however problem: the early atmosphere was assumed to be reductive and this probably not true.
These findings, in particular the problem due to the reductivity, represent a fascinating challenge for
TGD inspired quantum biology. The proposal is that in formamide is the unique amide, which can
form stable bound states with dark protons and crucial for the development of life as dark matter-
visible matter symbiosis. Local reductivity could be due to the formation of electron rich exclusions
zones due to Pollack effect generating also dark protons at magnetic flux tubes. Dark protons would
bind stably with unique amine leading to generation of purines and the 4 RNA bases. This would be
starting point of life as symbiosis of ordinary matter and dark matter as large heff/h = n phases of
ordinary matter generated at quantum criticality induced by say extraterrestrial impacts.

1 Introduction

Two highly interesting findings providing insights about the origins of life have emerged and it is interesting
to see how they fit to the TGD inspired vision.

The group led by Thomas Carell has made an important step in the understanding the origins of life.
They have identified a mechanism leading to the generation of purines A and G which besides pyrimidines
A,T (U) are the basic building bricks of DNA and RNA. The crucial step is to make the solution involved
slightly acidic by adding protons. For year later I learned that a variant of Urey-Miller experiment
with simulation of shock waves perhaps generated by extraterrestrial impacts using laser pulses generates
formamide and this in turn leads to the generation of all 4 RNA bases.

These findings represent a fascinating challenge for TGD inspired quantum biology. The proposal
is that formamide is the unique amide, which can form stable bound states with dark protons and
crucial for the development of life as dark matter-visible matter symbiosis. Pollack effect would generate
electron rich exclusions zones and dark protons at magnetic flux tubes. Dark protons would bind stably
with unique amine leaving its chemical properties intact. This would lead to the generation of purines
and the 4 RNA bases. This would be starting point of life as symbiosis of ordinary matter and dark
matter as large heff/h = n phases of ordinary matter generated at quantum criticality induced by say
extraterrestrial impacts. The TGD based model for cold fusion and the recent results about superdense
phase of hydrogen identifiable in TGD framework as dark proton sequences giving rise to dark nuclear
strings provides support for this picture.

There is however a problem: a reductive environment (with ability to donate electrons) is needed
in these experiments: it seems that early atmosphere was not reductive. In TGD framework one can
imagine two - not mutually exclusive - solutions of the problem. Either life evolved in underground
oceans, where oxygen concentration was small or Pollack effect gave rise to negatively charged and thus

1Correspondence: Matti Pitkänen http://tgdtheory.com/. Address: Karkinkatu 3 D 3, 03600, Karkkila, Finland. Email:
matpitka6@gamail.com.

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal www.www.dnadecipher.com

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

http://tgdtheory.com/
mailto:matpitka6@gmail.com


DNA Decipher Journal | July 2017 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 01-05 2

Pitkänen, M., Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

reductive exclusion zones (EZs) as protons were transferred to dark protons at magnetic flux tubes. The
function of UV radiation, catalytic action, and of shock waves would be generation of quantum criticality
inducing the creation of EZs making possible dark heff/h = n phases.

2 The first step: binding of dark protons to formamido-pyrimidine

I learned about very interesting discovery related to the problem of understanding how the basic building
bricks of life might have emerged. RNA (DNA) has nucleotides A,G,C,U (T) as basic building bricks.

The first deep question is how the nucleotides A,G,C,U, and T emerged.

1. There are two types of nucleotides. Pyrimidines C and T/U (see http://tinyurl.com/k3vxl9b)
have single carbon 6-cycle. Purines A and G (see http://tinyurl.com/odvqw2p) in turn have
single 6-single and 5-cycle fused attached together along one side. Purines are clearly more complex
than pyrimidines.

2. U.K. chemist John Sutherland demonstrated a plausible sequence of steps leading to the emergence
of pyrimidines. Purines turned out to be more problematic. Leslie Orgel and colleagues suggested
a possible pathway but it produces purines in too tiny amounts.

Now a group led by Thomas Carell in Ludwig Maximilian University have found a more plausible
mechanism [3] (see http://tinyurl.com/z65kpyo).

1. Carell and colleagues studied the interaction of biomolecule formamido-pyrimidine (FaPy) with
DNA and found that it also reacts to produce purines. Could FaPys have served as predecessors of
purines? (For formamide see http://preview.tinyurl.com/lwqyqnu and for the class of chemical
compounds known as amines see http://tinyurl.com/mad6c2u).

2. The first step would have been a copious production of amino-pyrimidines containing several chem-
ical groups known as amines. The problem is that the are so many amines and they normally react
indiscriminantly to produce many different compounds. One wants mostly purines so that only one
critical amine is wanted.

3. When Carell and his team added some acid to the solution to decrease its pH, a miracle happened.
The extra protons from acid attached to the amines of the amino-pyrimidine and made them non-
reactive. There was however one exception: just the amine giving rise to purine in its reactions!
The reactive amine also readily bonded with formic acid acid (see http://tinyurl.com/lmstt7n)
or formamide. Hence it seems that one big problem has been solved.

The second challenge is to understand how the building bricks of RNA and DNA combined to form
longer polymers and began to replicate.

1. One prevailing vision is that so called RNA world preceded the recent biology dominated by DNA.
The goal has been to achieve generation of RNA sequence in laboratory. Unlike DNA RNA sequences
are not stable and long sequences are difficult to generate. DNA in turn replicates only inside cell
and the presence of what is known as ordered water seems to be essential for this.

2. This step might involve new physics and chemistry and I have considered the possibility that the
new physics involves magnetic bodies and dark proton sequences as a representation of the genetic
code at the level of dark nuclear physics. There is no need to add that the fact that dark proton
states provide representations for RNA, DNA, tRNA, and amino-acids [6, 7] looks like a miracle
and I find still difficult to believe that it is true and for genetic code. Also the representation of
vertebrate code emerges in terms of correspondences of dark proton states.

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal www.www.dnadecipher.com

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

http://tinyurl.com/k3vxl9b
http://tinyurl.com/odvqw2p
http://tinyurl.com/z65kpyo
http://preview.tinyurl.com/lwqyqnu
http://tinyurl.com/mad6c2u
http://tinyurl.com/lmstt7n


DNA Decipher Journal | July 2017 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 01-05 3

Pitkänen, M., Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

This suggests that the replication of DNA and takes place at the level of dark proton sequencies -
dark nuclear strings - serving as a dynamical template for the biological replication. Also transcrip-
tion and translation would be induced by dark process. Actually all biochemical processes could
have as template the dynamics of molecular magnetic bodies and biochemistry would be kind of
shadow of deeper dynamics.

3. There is actually support for dark proton sequences. Quite recently I learned about the article of Leif
Holmlid and Bernhard Kotzias [1] (see http://tinyurl.com/hxbvfc7) about the superdense phase
of hydrogen. In TGD superdense phase has interpretation as dark proton sequences at magnetic flux
tubes with the Compton length of dark proton coded by heff/h ' 211 to electron’s Compton length
[8]. Remarkably, it is reported that the superdense hydrogen is super-conductor and super-fluid at
room temperatures and even above: this is just what TGD predicts.

The dark protons in TGD inspired quantum biology [9] should have much longer Compton length
of order of the distance between nucleotides in DNA sequences in order to serve as templates for
chemical DNA. This gives a dark Compton length of order ' 3.3 Angstroms from the fact that
there are 10 codons per 10 nm. This gives heff/h ' 218.

One can return back to the first step in the genesis of DNA and RNA. The addition of protons to the
solution used to model prebiotic environment to make it slightly acidic was the key step. Why?

1. Here cold fusion might help. Cold fusion is claimed to take place in electrolysis involving ionization
and charge separation. The electric fields used in electrolysis induce ionization and thus charge
separation. For me it has however remained a mystery how electric fields, which are extremely
tiny using the typical strength of molecular electric field as standard are able to induce a charge
separation. Of course, every chemist worth of his salt regards this as totally trivial problem. I am
however foolish enough to consider the possibility that some new physics might be involved.

2. The mechanism causing charge separation could be analogous to or that discovered by Pollack as
he irradiated water bounded by a gel phase [2] [9]: in the recent case the electric field would take
the role of irradiation as a feeder of energy. Negatively charged exclusion zones (EZs) were formed
and 1/4 of protons went somewhere.

The TGD proposal is that part of protons went to magnetic flux tubes and formed dark proton
sequences identifiable as dark nuclear strings. The scaled down nuclear binding energy favours the
formation of dark nuclear strings perhaps proceeding as analog of nuclear chain reaction. This
picture allows to ask whether dark proton sequences giving rise to a fundamental representation of
the genetic code could have been present already in water [9]!

3. How DNA/RNA could have then formed? Could the protons making the solution acidic be dark
so that the proton attaching to the amine would be dark? Could it be that for all amines except
the right one the proton transforms to ordinary proton and destroys the chemical reactivity. Could
the attached dark proton remain dark just for the correct amine so that the amine would remain
reactive and give rise to purine in further reactions? Could A,G,C,T and U be those purines and
pyrimidines - or even more general biomolecules - for which the attachment to dark proton does
not transform it to ordinary proton and in this manner affect dramatically the chemical properties
of the molecule? What is the condition for the preservation of the darkness of the proton?

3 Second step: Could shock waves due to extraterrestrial im-
pacts have produced RNA bases?

About year later I learned about a further interesting finding related to the prebiotic evolution (see the
popular article at http://tinyurl.com/m8npeor). The conclusion of the research article (see [4]) is that

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal www.www.dnadecipher.com

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

http://tinyurl.com/hxbvfc7
http://tinyurl.com/m8npeor


DNA Decipher Journal | July 2017 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 01-05 4

Pitkänen, M., Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

that the extraterrestrial impacts on Earth’s early atmosphere might have generated all 4 RNA bases (see
http://tinyurl.com/kxxc7db). Also now the formamide is involved and my layman guess is that the
motivation for this comes from the experiment of Carell et al [3] (see http://tinyurl.com/z65kpyo)
discussed above. If formamide is generated then it becomes possible to generate formamido-pyridine and
from this the RNA bases can be generated.

The experiment was a modern version of Urey-Miller experiment originally intended to simulate the
situation at the surface of the early atmosphere modelled as a mixture a water H2O, carbon-monoxide
CO, and ammonium NH3. The shock waves generated by the impacts were modelled in the experiment
using terawatt laser pulses.

In the original Urey-Miller experiment amino-acids were generated. In the modern version of the
experiment it was found that also formamide CONH3 is formed, whose presence under suitable circum-
stances can lead to the generation of all 4 RNA bases. The presence of UV radiation, shock waves caused
by extraterrestrial collisions, or of catalyst is the necessary condition.

In TGD Universe the additional condition could guarantee quantum criticality accompanied by dark
heff/h = n phases leading to the generation of dark protons and their stable binding with formamido-
pyrimidine. The stable binding would not be possible for other amido-pyrimidines since dark protons
would transform to ordinar protons for them. All 4 RNA bases would emerge from formamido-pyrimidine.
All basic molecules of life could be produced in the reductive atmosphere.

The atmosphere was assumed to be reductive and this is a problem: the best that one can hope is that
the early atmosphere was weakly reductive. Chemical compound is reductive (see http://tinyurl.com/

m9cqnob) if it tends to donate electron. Reduction means receiving electron - and in chemistry hydrogen
atom. To obtain a reducing atmosphere (see http://tinyurl.com/lx4tat2) one should remove oxygen
from it. It however seems that the early atmosphere has contained oxygen and was oxidative rather than
reductive. How could one overcome the problem?

1. In the experiment of Carell et al protons were added to reduce the pH of water. The basic exper-
imental rule is that this makes the environment more reductive. The TGD proposal is that it led
to a formation of dark proton-amine pair for the amine leading to the formation of purine. Charge
separation by Pollack effect [2] [9] leading to the generation of dark proton sequences (dark nuclei)
at magnetic flux tubes could have been due to the IR radiation, and maybe also by UV radiation,
catalytic action, or by shock waves. The presence of electrons in the exclusion zones (EZs) could
have made them electron donors and therefore reductive.

The addition of protons in the experiment of Carell reducing the pH of water could have induced
a transformation of dark protons at magnetic flux tube to ordinary protons. Dark protons bound
to the amines would have transformed to ordinary protons and inducing their chemical inactivity.
Only for the amine formamide serving as a precursor of purine the dark proton-amine bound state
was stable and remained chemically reactive since dark proton did not affect the properties of
visible matter part of the compound. Symbiosis between dark and ordinary matter began. This
view conforms also with the vision about the pairing of DNA/RNA and dark DNA/RNA formed by
sequences of proton triplets representing DNA/RNA codons [10]. DNA is indeed negatively charged
and dark proton could neutralize it but allow it to remain chemically active.

2. Second possibility is suggested by the conjecture that prebiotic life evolved in the crust of Earth,
perhaps in the underground oceans or regions related to volcanoes [5, 9]. The content of oxygen of
this environment could have been much lower than at the surface making it reductive: it would not
be possible to even talk about atmosphere. But where did the metabolic energy come from? Could
volcanic energy emitted as dark long wave photons with energies in the range of bio-photon energies
help here? There are indeed a theories assuming that first life forms emerged from volcanoes.
These problems are discussed in [5, 9] from TGD viewpoint. Note that these two explanations do
not exclude each other.

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal www.www.dnadecipher.com

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

http://tinyurl.com/kxxc7db
http://tinyurl.com/z65kpyo
http://tinyurl.com/m9cqnob
http://tinyurl.com/m9cqnob
http://tinyurl.com/lx4tat2


DNA Decipher Journal | July 2017 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 | pp. 01-05 5

Pitkänen, M., Steps towards Understanding of the Origins of Life

References

[1] Holmlid L and Kotzias B. Phase transition temperatures of 405-725 K in superfluid ultra-dense
hydrogen clusters on metal surfaces. AIP Advances. Available at: http://tinyurl.com/hxbvfc7,
6(4), 2016.

[2] The Fourth Phase of Water : Dr. Gerald Pollack at TEDxGuelphU. Available at: https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=i-T7tCMUDXU, 2014.

[3] Carell T et al. A high-yielding, strictly regioselective prebiotic purine nucleoside formation pathway.
Science. Available at:http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6287/833, 352(6287):833–
836, 2016.

[4] Ferus M et al. Formation of nucleobases in a millerurey reducing atmosphere. PNAS.Available at:
http://tinyurl.com/kxxc7db, 2017.

[5] Pitkänen M. Expanding Earth Model and Pre-Cambrian Evolution of Continents, Climate, and
Life. In Genes and Memes. In online book. Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/

genememe/genememe.html#expearth, 2006.

[6] Pitkänen M. Homeopathy in Many-Sheeted Space-Time. In Bio-Systems as Conscious Holo-
grams. In online book. Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/hologram/hologram.

html#homeoc, 2006.

[7] Pitkänen M. Nuclear String Hypothesis. In Hyper-finite Factors and Dark Matter Hierarchy.
In online book. Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/neuplanck/neuplanck.html#

nuclstring, 2006.

[8] Pitkänen M. Cold Fusion Again . Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/

cfagain.pdf, 2015.

[9] Pitkänen M. More Precise TGD Based View about Quantum Biology and Prebiotic Evolution.
Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/geesink.pdf, 2015.

[10] Pitkänen M. About Physical Representations of Genetic Code in Terms of Dark Nuclear Strings.
Available at: http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/genecodemodels.pdf, 2016.

ISSN: 2159-046X DNA Decipher Journal www.www.dnadecipher.com

Published by QuantumDream, Inc.

http://tinyurl.com/hxbvfc7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-T7tCMUDXU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-T7tCMUDXU
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6287/833
http://tinyurl.com/kxxc7db
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/genememe/genememe.html#expearth
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/genememe/genememe.html#expearth
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/hologram/hologram.html#homeoc
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/hologram/hologram.html#homeoc
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/neuplanck/neuplanck.html#nuclstring
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/neuplanck/neuplanck.html#nuclstring
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/cfagain.pdf
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/cfagain.pdf
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/geesink.pdf
http://tgdtheory.fi/public_html/articles/genecodemodels.pdf

	Introduction
	The first step: binding of dark protons to formamido-pyrimidine
	Second step: Could shock waves due to extraterrestrial impacts have produced RNA bases?

