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No one has yet synthesized a "protocell" using basic components which would have the necessary properties of life (the so-called "bottom-up-approach"). Without such a proof-of-principle, explanations have tended to be focused on chemosynthesis of polymers. However, some researchers are working in this field, notably Steen Rasmussen at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Jack Szostak at Harvard University. Others have argued that a "top-down approach" is more feasible. One such approach, successfully attempted by Craig Venter and others at The Institute for Genomic Research, involves engineering existing prokaryotic cells with progressively fewer genes, attempting to discern at which point the most minimal requirements for life were reached.[43][44] The biologist John Desmond Bernal coined the term biopoiesis for this process,[45] and suggested that there were a number of clearly defined "stages" that could be recognised in explaining the origin of life.
Researcher Martin Hanczyc supports the idea of a gradient between life and non-life (i.e. there is no simple line between the two). He thinks that building simple protocells, in the lab, is one of the first steps towards understanding more complex cells, including those that may have later evolved into complex life. Hanczyc says that living cells often consist of somewhere around 1,000,000 types of molecules, whereas his labs are first aiming at creating lifelike systems using around 10 molecules. His protocells display behaviors even simpler than those displayed by things like viruses (e.g. only basic motion, dividing and combining cell walls, and so on). These lifelike behaviors are visible in the short film Protocell Circus by Rachel Armstrong and Michael Simon Toon.
Regards from Rosie
If you are making the claim that complex lifeforms evolved from the simplist building blocks. Then the obvious question is..
what preceeded it? Then the hurdle of.... life from non life. Then if the Big Bang is the formation of the universe, where did the matter come from. I don't believe there is a scientific answer for that, certainly one that can be proved. I'm all for science but there may be a point where science runs out of answers. It takes a lot of faith to believe the universe came from nothing.
The simplest building blocks of life ARE non-life. Put together the right way and given millions of evolutionary years, BINGO! Slimy algae which is alive. And stuff that acts alive but is not, like viruses. Viruses are evolutionary engines by efficiently transferring genetic material from one organism to a different kind of organism.
As to the Big Bang - my link tells you it happened due to disruption of the Big Vacuum. The weight of dark energy shifting made it all go BOOM.
Energy can be converted into matter, which happened everywhere all at once in every direction at the exact instant of the Big Bang.
Where did the energy come from? The weight and mass of itself being contained.
You really cannot comprehend the origins of the Universe without a concrete grounding in philosophy; but religion is not necessary. Stephen Hawking says God was not needed. Google that phrase to understand why.
Don't ask about multi-verses. That is a whole other philosophical area and I am not a paid tutor. Start with string theory.
Regards from Rosie