Re: First life form on earth

On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 21:30:39 +0000 (UTC), "Red Dragon"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>Thanks fellows for broadening my horizon.
>Now that prokaryote has been named as the universal common ancestor,  and
>the explanation on the Five Kingdoms of Life by Norman, it has led me to
>more questions.
>
>1.  How did prokaryote get its name.  Like is it  " The father of all living
>things" in Latin or Greek or something?
>2.  Who gave it its name?
>3.  How did the Biologist come to this deduction that  it is the first life
>form and no others?
>4.  Is prokaryote still in existence today or has it  become extinct?  Can
>we still find prokaryote hibernating inside  Achaean rock?
>5.  Is there a possibility that there being 5 kingdom of Life as pointed out
>by Norman,   that  actually,  there were 5  universal common ancestors that
>had developed independently  and not one?
>6.  How did prokaryote  produce offspring?   Just like present day bacteria
>that  divide itself?
>
>I will be most grateful if someone can enlighten me.
>Thanks
>Khoon.

I think you would do well to get a good introductory biology book and
read it.  All of  your questions are answered there.

In Greek, karuon means nut or kernel and refers here to the nucleus of
a cell.  The eukaryotes have a "proper" nucleus -- "eu" means good or
"normal".  The prokaryotes came before or earlier -- hence "pro".

Also, I described the five kingdom model as being about 50 years old.
I did say it has now been replaced by the three domain, six kingdom
model.

The modern bacteria are, in fact, prokaryotes.  There are two distinct
kinds of bacteria.  The "true" or "good" bacteria form the Kingdom
Eubacteria  and the "ancient" bacteria form the Kingdom
Archaeabacteria.  These are both prokaryotes.  Most biologists now
agree that the differences in cell organization and structure between
these two groups and the remaining organisms made of eukaryotic cells
is so great that these are the three domains, the Bacteria
(Eubacteria), the Archaea (Archaeabacteria) and the Eukarya (all the
eukaryotes).  The Eukayotes are divided into the multicellular Plant
Kingdom, the Animal Kingdom, and the Fungus Kingdom, and the Protista
Kingdom which includes a hodgepodge of single-celled organisms plus a
worse hodgepodge of multicellular things like algae and slime molds
that don't fit nicely anywhere else. 

Prokaryotes divide by fission -- the DNA replicates and the cell
divides into two -- each half getting one copy of the DNA. The details
of the evolutionary relationships between the three domains are still
quite murky and unsettled.  Very clearly, the multicellular eukaryotes
all evolved from single celled eukaryotes (Protista) and the single
celled protista evolved from a complex amalgamation of several
different bacterial cells.  Some of the organelles inside eukaryotic
cells, like mitochondria and chloroplasts, have many characteristics
of prokaryotes.  These are the descendents of early bacteria that
invaded another cell and stayed to live on symbiotically.  There is a
lot of argument about just what kind of prokaryote was really the
orign of all others and about just how the archaea are related to the
eubacteria.

But this stuff fills several chapters of textbooks and I really can't
go through all that stuff in a news group posting.  Get a good book
and read about it!