TomHendricks474  wrote or quoted:

> >From "Who Goes There' I have these quotes
> 
> "They also found that one kind of clay, that which contains
nickel, attracts
> exactly those 20 amino acids found in living things on earth....
> 
> Do you have any follow up on this point?

I'd have to see the context for these quotes to interpret them properly 
- but:

Clays are moderately good at grabbing other molecules - because of exposed 
charges on their surfaces.  Clay is used for clearing wine for this reason 
- the exposed charges "grab" other molecules and produce a composite ball 
that is heavy enough to sink to the bottom as sediment.

I would expect the clay in question attracted the 20 amino acids found
in living things on earth - and all kinds of other stuff as well...

> And this one:
> 
> "One clay which contains zinc concentrated the nucleotides that
make up DNA.

Concentrated them?  By grabbing them out of soultion - maybe?  Activated 
carbon would probably do much the same thing...

> Significantly zinc is known to play an imortant role in an enzyme called DNA
> polymerase, .... which links nucleotides to form large DNA molecules.
> 
> Any update on this aspect of clay?

Clays can contain zinc.  DNA polymerase also contains zinc.

I don't have any clear idea about why this might be significant.

Maybe zinc plays related roles in both structures?  I don't know
of any evidence suggesting this is the case, though.

In carbon-based biology, zinc plays an important role in forming "zinc
fingers" - but I don't know if there's anything like a clay equivalent.
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