Scientist officially created a cell that can carry out cell replication.
Yes, I know this is not evolution but creationists often claim creating life is impossible without god so I am posting this to disprove that. So I hope this doesn't get removed.
The paper: https://biotic.org/research/spudcell/
So just a quick summary:
- First minimal synthetic cell made from nonliving building blocks to complete a cell-cycle-like loop: feeding, growth, genome replication, division, selection, and competition.
- The synthetic cell has a roughly 90,000-base-pair genome that encodes functions for resource uptake, transcription, translation, growth, genome replication, and division.
- A lipid membrane compartment containing a multipart DNA genome, gene-expression machinery, genome replication machinery, membrane channels, nutrient uptake, waste exchange, feeding, division, and selection.
- This is not a modified living bacterium. It is a liposome containing DNA and a chemically defined, cell-free protein-making system.
- The system copies its DNA using Phi29 DNA polymerase and for most of the main experiments, uses the PURE protein-expression system because its components are known and controllable.
- The synthetic cell "feeds" by fusing with smaller feeder liposomes that supply lipids, enzymes, ribosomes, and small molecules, and that feeding is controlled by a protein expressed by the synthetic cell itself.
- The authors demonstrated five generations of the cell cycle and detected newly copied DNA, mRNA, protein output, and generation-counter signals showing that cells repeatedly fed across generations.
- After five generations, about 30% of analyzed individual cells still contained the complete seven-plasmid genome, which is notable because the system lacks a cytoskeleton and normal DNA-segregation machinery.
- The researchers also demonstrated selection, cells engineered to make more of the feeding-and-growth protein produced more daughter cells and gained population share, especially when feeder resources were scarce.
Just to be clear, this is not abiogenesis. It's more Frankensteining a bunch of non-living parts and creating something that can replicate functions of living cells. There is more work to be done but it shows creating life is indeed possible so it occuring naturally is not farfetched at all.