Anthony Sieckmann
Jennings/Free
APHEIV/APB
Cross Curricular Essay
The beginnings of the world are a mystery, and there are more theories about
the birth of the galaxy than you can count. The prominent one is The Big Bang. ( This
happens to be the most prominent and supported theory because of a couple principles
of physics. The Doppler Effect says that things moving farther away have less
wavelengths hitting your retinas making an object appear red as it is moving away from
you. The phenomena is called Redshift. Inversely the phenomena Blueshift happens
when an object is moving closer to you and it increases the frequency of wavelengths
hitting your eyes making the object that is moving toward you appear blue. This is why
many things in the galaxies appear to be red. So if you were to rewind everything would
converge back into a singularity.) The big bang states that in the beginning of time there
was a singularity filled with infinite mass and infinite density. The singularity, at a
temporal moment exploded and released everything within it. The innards are
everything in existence. Zoom in to a newly forming plant we call Earth. At its genesis it
was a uninhabitable place. The period is know as the Hadean Eon. This is very accurate
because is comes from the greek word Hades, meaning underworld, and that was the
condition of Earth, hellish. There were sulfuric volcanoes and the atmosphere was made
of CH4 (Methane), NH3 (ammonia), H2 (Hydrogen Gas), PO4-3 (Phosphate) and H20
(Water). This atmosphere is also being bombarded by heat from the newly forming sun,
planets, and other chemical reactions, and by ultraviolet light, since there is not a layer
of ozone to diffuse it. Stop and fast forward 3.7 billion year to the year 1950. There are
two men by the names of Miller and Urey. They are doing an experiment in which they
want to recreate Earth’s primitive atmosphere. They had gathered the 3 gases above,
mixed them with the water vapor, and bombarded them with high energy radiation (a
spark). After a week of the continued experiment, the mixture at the bottom of the
flasks contained glycine, alanine, -aminobutyric, -aminoisobutyric acids, -alanine,
aspartic and glutamic acids, sarcosine, and N-CN3-alanine. Those aforementioned
particles are called amino acids. Amino acids are what put together proteins. After
awhile with the use of the H20 the amino acids went through dehydration synthesis and
synthesized RNA. RNA stands for Ribonucleic Acid. RNA is the simplest molecule capable
of self-replication. RNA has another function, in which it can act as an enzyme known as
ribozyme. This enzyme function was purposed to speed along the reactions. The most
important reaction it sped-up was its own replication. The ribozyme helped to form
things called coascervates. These are tiny membranes made up of phospholipids
(Phosphate molecules attached to chains of carbon and hydrogen) This was the first
membrane. The RNA started to form the simplest form of an organism called a
prokaryote. Prokaryotes at this time are RNA molecules inside of the primordial
membranes. In this time period a theory called endosymbiosis came into play. At one
time there were many prokaryotes by themselves, then one of the prokaryotes
endocytosized (The way cells engulf other cells) another one of the prokaryotes. The
now bigger prokaryote engulfed all of the other prokaryotes. After a while the other
smaller prokaryotes inside of the larger one, specialized themselves to have certain
functions. The smaller prokaryotes are what we call organelles (the cellular form of an
organ). This large cell is what we know today as the complex cell called a eukaryote. This
specific eukaryote is believed to be cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are of a classification
of
bacteria that obtain energy through photosynthesis. Photosynthetic organisms use
light and CO2 to create and energy source known as glucose. One of the bi-products of
photosynthesis is O2 (Oxygen). The abundant presence of oxygen turned the
atmosphere from a reducing one into an oxidizing one. This was a turn around to the
early life on Earth, and helped with the formation of more advanced forms of life that
rely on oxygen for their existence. This whole explanation is called Abiogenesis. It
literally means birth without life.
Now, switch back to the year that Mary Shelly had written her iconic book
Frankenstein. The year is 1818, and the world is so far back, in the technology sense.
Then go into the book and go to Frankenstein’s laboratory. He has just created the
monster. Now, stop. Since the book doesn’t explain to us how he comes alive we have
to use our “scientific imagination”. To scientists, creating a human would be impossible.
But, have we really thought of all the options? He has all the organs and arteries and
veins in their correct anatomical places. The mound of flesh and bone is heated to a
precise temperature of 98.6 degrees. He puts two metal bolts in his neck to conduct
electricity and send a shock to his brain, spinal column, and eventually to his heart.
Bump bump, bump bump, bump bump. “ITS ALIVE!” He yells manically.
STOP! Some of you might be under the impression that that is how the monster
was born. Well to be realistic that is a biological medical impossibility. So the scientists
were right. Now we will dissect how this could, would, and should never happen from a
scientific point of view. The first insanity of this is collecting the necessary materials to
make up the physical makeup of the person. Granted that flesh could be decomposing,
you can live with holes in your body, even though it is not the most becoming
circumstance that there is. You would then have to find a brain that had not been
decomposed at all. And since there is no formaldehyde at the time there is no way to
efficiently preserve a brain, or any vital organ for that matter. Frankenstein would have
to have a slew of extremely fresh cadavers to chose from. Even then, he would have to
transplant the brain, a surgery to this day we have not accomplished. Then you would
have to have all of the microscopic nerve fibers, the vertebrae, and the brain
undamaged. That feat on its own is impossible. Then he would have to have enough
blood to transfuse into the body to get it working. That is assuming he gets all of the
same blood types. If not, a syringe full of blood that is not of the same type will lead to a
very painful Acute hemolytic transfusion reaction that will kill his blood from the inside.
This causes acute renal failure (Kidney), hepatic distress then failure (Liver) and
eventually Multi Organ System Failure and death. Then lets say by some stretch of the
imagination that it actually works. The heat that would be necessary to heat up the
body and the electrical charge to bring him to life would be to great. He would sink into
hyperthermia and eventually attain the condition rhabdomyolysis (Breakdown of muscle
tissue). When the muscle breakdown it releases myoglobin that is toxic to the kidneys.
He would eventually suffer from renal failure. After that the monster would suffer from
clogged blood vessels and a number of things could happen after that: stroke,
embolism, heart attack, or anoxia. All of which would kill him in less than half and hour,
and in their time, with the absence of technology, they would have no idea what
happened.
There is also the issue of ethics that goes along with the restructuring and
reconstitution of the human body. The first issue is where to find parts to donate to the
new formation of the human body. There of course is the list of bodies of people who
donate their bodies for science. If we use those to reconstitute a body, there would be a
major blowback within the scientific community, because we don’t even know if this
surgical feat is possible. There is very little, if any knowledge of this occurring. There are
also people waiting at the hospital in a proverbial “limbo” waiting for an organ
transplant. This would stir up trouble. A person could also argue for
Xeno-Transplantation. People would also be outraged at this because
Xeno-Transplantation because it is still in its experimental stages. A highly experimental
procedure, if you could even call it that, coupled with another experimental procedure,
and the waste of organs would stir the pot in the medical community, along with the
people who are waiting for a transplant. There is also, the dispute of a person being
truly human. If the person being created was made of sheep’s heart and pig valves,
baboon’s liver, then it wouldn’t really be all human, it would be of chimeric origin . The
newly created person would have to be on many drugs to make sure that the body
would not reject the other newly transplanted organs. All of this along with Blood
transfusions would make for, if even possible, a terrible life at that.
Then on top of that begs the question, why? Why would we want to create new
life, when we are perfectly capable to create life on our own. Especially if our Earth is
overpopulated. Our world is at 7.1 billion people and counting. And if for some reason
we would need to create people, we can do in through in vitro fertilization. There would
be no reason to create zombie-like human beings when we can make “regular” human
beings in a lab. It is very illogical and there is no distinct reasoning to it. It is not
advantageous to anyone.
Works Cited
Lal, Ashwini. "Origin of Life." Saint Louis Univeristy Database. N.p., 1 June 2008. Web.
10 Nov. 2012.
<ezp.slu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a
9h&AN=35119870&site=eds-live>.
Menefee, Christine . "Frankensteins Real Mistake." Saint Louis University Libraries .
Version 45. N.p., 1 May 1999. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
<ezp.slu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f
5h&AN=1852303&site=eds-live>.
Okeke , Jonathan. "An Inquiry into the Moral Question of Xeno-Transplantation.."
Xeno-Transplantation . N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
<ezp.slu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a
9h&AN=78179826&site=eds-live>.
UNK, UNK. "Miller-Urey Synthesis in the nuclei of Galaxies." Saint Louis University
Libraries . N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012.
<https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=8be47fcf5f&view=att&th=13a21e1
bbe776101&attid=0.1&disp=inline&realattid=f_h7t3s7k40&safe=1&zw>.
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