"tinyurl.com/uh3t"  wrote in message
news:cno3p3$13ql$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> > From: "John Edser" 
> > What is needed is more applied imagination, i.e. more REAL work. The
> > goal must be to put forward an experiment of nature (not just a model)
> > that can refute some of these propositions.
>
> I agree. But it costs money to lease lab space and equipment and hire
> people to do the lab work. Do you know any source of funding for
> abiogenesis experiments, followups to the Miller-Urey experiment? I'm
> aware that variations of their experiment have been done since then,
> and reported, but I'm not aware of any big source of funding
> specifically for such research. I assume such experiments were done on
> the side of some rather different type of funded experiment, not that
> there was specific funding for the Miller-Urey followup experiments.
> Does anyone reading this tread know for sure the funding situation?
>
> [snip]

My impression is that university researchers in the US mostly get their funding
through NASA.  There are also a small number of research institutes funded
by private bequests that specialize in this subject.  I believe that
Sidney Fox, for example, found a private donor of several million dollars
to fund his follow-up studies, and the cluster of researchers in San Diego,
including Stanley Miller and Lesley Orgel work for a private research
institute.

The standard journal for reporting this kind of research is (was?) "Origins of
Life and Evolution of the Biosphere".  IMHO, that journal has not once
contained an article worth Xeroxing.

Of course, there is also experimental work being done in Germany, the UK,
Russia, etc.  While the total amount of funding for OOL-related chemical
experiments is not large, it is diverse enough that promising testable
ideas do eventually get tested.  For example, Wachtershauser's Popper-inspired
theoretical ideas are now confronting physical experimentation in Germany.

One amusing difficulty in conducting this kind of research is that the most
promising experiments involve extremely noxious chemicals.  CO and HCN are
well known poisons.  Use of H2S may get you thrown out of your local
community college chemistry laboratory.  And my favorite magic ingredients -
nickel carbonyls - are perhaps the most potent cancer-causing agents known.
---
þ RIMEGate(tm)/RGXPost V1.14 at BBSWORLD * Info{at}bbsworld.com

---
 * RIMEGate(tm)V10.2áÿ* RelayNet(tm) NNTP Gateway * MoonDog BBS
 * RgateImp.MoonDog.BBS at 11/21/04 6:08:53 AM