Converting raw energy into biological energy

Green plants.Case closed. What could be rawer than pure sunlight?

Yes, that's close. Plants turn water and CO2 into glucose in chloroplasts. CO2 and water don't, by themselves, represent enough chemical energy to make this reaction spontaneous, so plants utilize the energy of the sun to make up the deficit.In other words they're changing the light energy of the sun into chemical energy stored inside of sugars. So, yes, they do operate on raw energy; the raw energy of sunlight which they change into the raw energy stored in the chemical bonds in sugar.I think the biggest problem for you right now is that there isn't, in fact, any such thing as "raw energy"; there is only energy in different forms. Chemical energy, heat energy, and light energy are all different forms of energy. But there's no "pure" or "raw" form of energy.If you don't believe that sunlight is necessary to green plants, they by all means, plant some corn or beans in a dark closet and see what happens. The seed has just enough energy to get a shoot up out of the soil, but after that, it needs sunlight and water to make sugars. What problem? Plants use sunlight to catalyze the formation of water and CO2 into sugars. That's exactly what you were asking for.Case closed, as I said.

I have no idea about the "so what." You'd have to tell me.Because that's what you asked for. An example of organisms using raw energy to catalyze biological processes.Well, that's exactly what plants do. They're the textbook example of it. Plants take raw sunlight and they use it to build sugars from water and CO2 gas. They catalyze the formation of glucose from water and CO2 using the energy of the sun.It's exactly what you asked for, Rob. Maybe you should have asked a better question.Maybe it's that you have no idea what the hell you're talking about? Light is the biologically usable form, because they have chloroplasts that use it. Other cell processes need energy in another, chemical form; generally stored as the bond between the second and third phosphates in ATP. The cell gets that energy from a process called "respiration", which all living things do, where glucose is reacted with oxygen and the chemical energy is released and used to cram a third phosphate on the end of a molecule of ADP.

Cyanobacteria? Yes, abundant evidence. For one thing, they're still around. For another, their fossilized remains - called "stromolites" - are some of the oldest fossils known to man.Nothing imagined about them. You can look around you and see them, under a microscope.

That you're making? Yes, it is.Maybe you're not aware what "incredulity" means. It means "I can't believe that, no matter what evidence you place before me."Believing in something because there's evidence for it all around us is the exact opposite of incredulity.

So what? It's big from a molecular perspective.You don't believe that chloroplasts even exist, now? Because that would contradict your religion?Go outside and look at a plant. I assure you, they're there.

Rob - pay attention to what people are telling you, please. At least two of us have already answered this question.

1) For the same reason I assume you have parents. Law of biogenesis.2) We have their fossil remains, called "stromolites." Yes, that might have helped, since none of us are mind-readers. It does often help to get everyone on the same page when you actually say what the page is supposed to be. But no, you're not talking about abiogenesis. You're talking about metabolism, remember?

And you think that's something that biochemists have never, ever thought of? Ever?You think that research biochemists, with ten years of studies just to get the degree and decades of professional study, have imagined every single property of what life's humble origins must have been like... except for what it ate?I don't understand some of you creationists at all. Even when I was a creationist, I was never such an asshole that I assumed that all scientists were fucking morons, as you seem to. They did after all bring us such things as computers and medicine.

No.Try to pay attention to what we're saying, ok?

Jesus christ, is that what this is about?Fuckin-a, Rob. It's called "chemosynthesis." Bacteria that live near deep-sea ocean vents survive off of raw mineral materials and form the basis of an entire ecosystem that never sees the light of the sun.

That's not surprising. Nearly one out of every 1000 randomly-generated proteins binds ATP, which can easily be generated by simple chemical reactions. Its constituent products occur inorganically.Just saying "ATP! ATP!" isn't a coherent response to what we're telling you. And let me remind you again - biochemists aren't fucking morons, so the idea that they've never thought of how early organisms would come to have an energy economy based on phosphating ADP is just ludicrous on its face.

ADP and AMP are naturally occuring; nearly one out of every thousand random polypeptides can bind ADP to a phosphate under energetically-favorable circumstances. Yes, it is. Is this, perhaps, the source of your confusion? The idea that you can't form ADP or ATP inorganically? Nothing could be further from the truth, I assure you.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

With my digital internet chemistry set?

You keep bringing up SETI.Don't you find it at least somewhat significant that, in the 30-plus years of its continued observation, the SETI program has never, at any point, detected any signal that was determined conclusively to be of intelligent, extraterrestrial origin?