When it comes to the chemistry of life, scientists make it sound a lot more difficult to understand than it really is. I wish they would put on their 'blah-blah' sensors long enough to give the basic explanation of life that any fifth grader could understand, but apparently that isn't going to happen so you'll just have to get by with mine.

I mentioned in an earlier article that all life begins its... er... life when a ray of sunshine combines with water and carbon dioxide to form a sugar. Look it up in my index under “Life is Sweet.” That leaves two directions to cover. Where did the original carbon compounds come from that make up amino acids that make proteins that make everything from DNA to cell walls? And how does simple sugar combine to form complex molecules?

Last things first. Living cells have plenty of sugars floating around just waiting to bond with nitrogen. Getting nitrogen is tricky because only certain microscopic cells have the ability to 'fix' nitrogen from the air into nitrogen that cells can use to build amino acids.

Oops. Didn't mean to get blah-blah on you. Try this: sugar combines with nitrogen (from certain plants) to build amino acids that combine with blah-blah (carboxyls) to form proteins. DNA and RNA are sequences of acids that put the chemicals together in the right order to form particular proteins.

Short summary here: water, carbon dioxide and sunshine makes sugar. Sugar combined with nitrogen makes amino acids. Bunches of amino acids combine with (hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon molecules called carboxyl groups) to make genes. Genes make proteins. Proteins make cells. Cells make living stuff.

Well, I told you I was going to explain at a fifth grade level. If you want details, look 'em up.

And I saved the first question for last: Where did the very first organic molecules come from? Before there was a single border-life chemical, there had to be building material. This is where it gets really simple because it is all about chemical reactions and every chemical reaction is based on the simple principle of positive and negative charges. Like the north and south ends of magnets attract each other, so do molecules attract and repel each other. The molecules of life: carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen form bonds everywhere, even in atmospheres where life doesn't exist.

All those molecules attracting, repelling, occasionally sucking in a phosphous or sulfur from the chemical soup, that's how life started. Carotenoids, Krebs cycle, ATP and ADP, enzemes, carbon cycles, respiration, photosynthesis and all the rest of the special language of biochemistry. Anyone can understand the basic principles. If you want to fascinate yourself with details, learn the blah-blah terms.