For further insight on the role of magnesium in the evolution of life,
download chapter ten at the site below

rich
http://www.***.com/ ~realstic/idealism.html
Realistic Idealism
Philosophy based on evidence

The actual site is,

        http://www.***.com/ ~realistic/idealism.html
                                  ^
                                insert "i"

This is a long essay called "A Measure of Truth" by Ralph Arthur Hall, MD
(1914-1994). Hall advocates a philosophy called "Realistic Idealism" that
claims to reconcile religion and science. (Any relationship between Ralph
Arthur Hall and Richard F. Hall?)

Chapter 10 ("Creation") discusses the origin of life. There isn't much on
magnesium and much of the science is high school level (or below).
However, here's an interesting quotation,

     "Sea water and life

      Sea water has been and is an important part of animal life.
      Animal life has never gotten away from the sea. Any {*filter*}
      taken from any animal can be centrifuged so that the corpuscular
      constituents are thrown down, and the super-natant fluid can be
      poured into another container leaving the {*filter*} cells behind.
      The supernatant fluid in turn can be treated with calcium chloride
      which precipitates proteins as a granular sub-stance. One can
      then separate out the granular substance by passing the solution
      through a filter. The filtrate will then be almost identical
      to sea water. We carry a sea sealed up inside our skins with
      elaborate physiological mechanisms to preserve the nearly exact
      composition of sea water."

The idea that the salt composition of {*filter*} plasma is identical to that of
sea water is an old urban legend that crops up from time to time.

It turns out that one of the most important researchers who investigated
this problem was A.B. Macallum who was chair of my department from
1907-1917. Macallum wrote a major review in 1926 (1) in which he debunked
the idea that the ionic composition of sea water was nearly the same as
that of sea water. Here's what he said seventy years ago,

     "Quinton, in 1897 (2), advanced the view that in the great majority
      of multicellular animals organisms the internal medium, the
      circulatory fluid, or hemolymph, is, as regards its organic
      composition, but sea water.... Analysis of the salts of the
      {*filter*} plasma, Quinton holds, indicates that they are the same
      as those which obtain in sea water and the elements of both
      appear in the same order of importance; Chlorine, sodium,
      potassium, calcium, magnesium, chuphur, silicon, carbon,
      phosphorus, fluorin, iron, nitrogen, etc. ...
         This indicates how uncritical he is in the examination of
      his data in his aim to demonstrate that the internal medium
      is but sea water. The elements do not appear in the same order
      of importance as stated. In sea water they rank thus: chlorine,
      sodium, magnesium, potassium, sulphur, calcium, etc., whereas
      in the {*filter*} plasma they rank: chlorine, sodium, potassium,
      calcium, sulphur, magnesium etc. In sea water the sodium is
      to the magnesium in amount as 100:12, whereas in the {*filter*}
      plasma of the higher vertebrates the ratio is as 100:0.7,
      which reveals a wide discrepancy. As regards the sulphur,
      which occurs almost wholly in sea water as sulphates, it is
      in amount in proportion to the sodium as 8.4:100, whereas
      in mammalian {*filter*} plasma if all the sulphur therein is
      reckoned as present in the form of sulphate, the proportion
      is 1.4:100."
                                                   p. 320-321

Macallum reviews his own expensive data on ionic composition and points
out that not only the proportions but also the concentrations do not
agree. The salt concentration of plasma is "less than one-fourth that of
sea water".

Macallum was a confirmed evolutionist and he went on to argue that the
salt concentration of mammalian plasma may reflect that of the ancient
ocean where our ancestors lived. He was under the impression that the
salinity and composition of the oceans has changed over the past several
hundred million years. (We now know that this is not correct.)
Furthermore, the ionic composition of cells is quite different from that
of the plasma and Macallum suggests that this is a reflection of an even
more ancient origin of cells in a Archaen ocean.

The point is that our {*filter*} is NOT like sea water. The sea is much more
salty and the relative concentrations of the various ions is different.
(Another point is that the entire Hall essay is no more accurate than
this false urban legend.)

1. Macallum, A.B. (1926) The Paleochemistry of the Body Fluids and
   Tissues. Physiol. Rev. 6, 316-357.

2. Quinton, R. (1898) Hypothese de l'eau de mer, milieu vital des
   organisimes eleves. Compt. rend. de la Soc. de Biol. 935

Larry Moran
Dept. of Biochemistry
University of Toronto

Dear Larry Moran:

I must first of all thank you for taking the time actually go to the site,
and, above all, take time to review it:

Yes, I am his first born.  I want to say right off, that any part of Realistic Idealism
is refutable.  It is, after all, philosophy based on evidence, not dogma.  We can
be biased by dogma, however.

For those who visit, we are talking about the second half of this chapter.
The main gist of the information on magnesium is the central role of this
element in chlorophyll as opposed to the role of iron (fe) in a similar molecule.  
The article continues to explore the development of these two forms of life.  
And why they are diferent.
I am always pleased to learn that Jr. High and elementary school science
has progressed so rapidly and this information has become self-evident.  
However, I somehow feel as though there is a bias being presented in your
review..

Your quote is correct, I think, but your reading skills need work.  The
quotation says "almost identical" and you continue to write a remarkable
article to prove just how "almost identical" they are.  Before anyone reads
your review too closely, they must be aware of the reading skills upon which
the review is based...
Anyway,
with {*filter*}, there is considerable variation between even individuals in
exact proportions, for instance.  The importance is the similarity between
{*filter*} and warm saline solution (salt water).

As explorers of our universe we often have to look for similarities.  
For example, there is a saying that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.  
To a degree, this is true, yet there are those that argue over minuscule
points in an attempt to discredit the whole process.  It can also be said
that phylogeny recapitulates paleobiology.  Again there is only a vague
similarity.  We are talking about three and one half billion years, Larry.  
There are bound to be differences to occur in that amount of time..  
I can only wonder????   What is the point you are trying to make?

rich
http://www.***.com/ ~realistic/idealism.html
Realistic Idealism
All scientists have religion, even if they deny it...  there is a science to religion...
A human science... but this is old, possibly below high school level.. I don't know.
Chapters seven and eight address this science.

I didn't read the entire essay. I only looked at the Introduction and the
Chapter that you told us to read. From what I read there doesn't seem to
be much point in wading through the other chapters.

Cool. So this is a tribute to your father? Do you believe in Realistic
Idealism?

I pointed out one bit of "evidence" that was false. I suspect that your
father was somewhat blinded by dogma in that case.

Is this what you are referring to ... ?

    "The emergence of effective amounts of oxygen in the air changed
     the pH (acid content) of many rivers from alkaline to acid, but not
     too acid, just enough to make iron soluble in the river water. The
     bottoms of some streams that had shown in golden hues then
     turned brown as the more soluble ferrous oxide (rust) appeared. The
     streams and rivers then carried the iron bearing waters down
     to the sea where it pushed away the magnesium bearing sea water from
     the mouths of the rivers. Once in salty sea water, the iron
     was thrown down to the sandy bottom where it mixed to make great beds
     of iron-sand stone, the source of the brown sandstone fronts in New
     York City. In the fresh water facing the sea water, iron was
     face to face with magnesium.

     Where the river and sea water mixed, hemoglobin became possible.
     A hemoglobin bacteria was dependent on the oxygen producing
     plankton out at sea. It also had a need that later became a virtue:
     It had to move. Bacteria that developed to depend on hemoglobin
     for their life had to swim effectively against a current to keep from
     being swept to death in the magnesium areas away from the iron.
     In the sea, where chlorophyll first occur-red as a greenish-brown
     pigment, magnesium occurred in concentrations over sixty thousand
     times that of iron.

     Movement became characteristic of the hemo-globin bearing life. Some
     few small species of magnesium bearing creatures did move too, but
     they did not have to orient themselves against a current to
     survive. As a matter of fact, most all magnesium bearing creatures
     tended to become sessile and could survive in currents that
     brought their cooking.net">food to them in many places in the sea. In
     essence, magnesium bearing life became plants, with chlorophyll,
     and iron bearing life became animals with hemoglobin."

     [skip many paragraphs]

     The hemoglobin bearing creatures had to stay within the iron bearing
     waters at the mouth of the rivers. therefore they had to MOVE
     to keep from being washed out to sea away from the soluble iron.
     As we peer through a microscope in search of tiny hemoglobin
     bearing life, our first probable clue is movement. We must
     distinguish it from the Brownian movement which is due to buffeting
     by heat and vibrations from the environment. The movements of
     microscopic creature are more persistent and searching. We have
     been considering movement of the total creature as it moves around
     its environment. Equally significant is the movement within the
     cell walls. As one observes a single cell, one may see movements
     within it. This movement is due to contractile proteins and
     microtubules. They function to mix the ingredients for nutritional
     purposes carrying reactive substances to affector organs, and
     clearing the end products of metabolism from the cell.

     As evolution developed, first cartilagenous, and later bony
     appendages appeared to control locomotion by acting as levers and
     paddles operated by contractile proteins. The rivers, again, divided
     life, necessitating the stronger bones with more calcium to
     withstand the battering by turbulent streams, thus dividing our
     forbearers: the bony fish, from the cartilagenous fish of the quieter
     seas. Land animals in turn evolved from the bony fish of the streams
     and rivers."

Almost all of this is scientific nonsense. Do you want to try and defend
it or are you just reporting what your late father wrote before he died?

Do you agree with your father's theory?

I meant that the "level" was high school (or below). This does not mean
that the information is accurate. (It isn't.) I do have a bias. I prefer
my information to be factually correct. Your biases may be different.

Your father said that when you analyze {*filter*} plasma it is "the nearly
exact composition of sea water". I said that neither the relative ratios
of the ions nor the concentrations are close to that of sea water. In
fact, I pointed out that it has been known for over seventy years that
the concentrations of ions in sea water are four times the concentration
of ions in {*filter*} plasma. Is this what you mean by "almost identical"?
Is this what your father meant by "nearly exact"?

I am content to let readers judge for themselves. They should be
encouraged to read your father's essay to see whether I am misrepresenting
him.

Have you considered changing the name of your philosophy?  Instead of
"Realistic Idealism" I suggest "Idealistic Rationalization".

The similarities have to be real, not imagined. The data has to be correct
or it isn't evidence.

The point I am trying to make is that the concentration of ions in {*filter*}
plasma is not even close to that of sea water. Your facts are wrong. This
means that your father's speculations are not based on reality. What point
are you trying to make?

Larry Moran

That is why it is a bad idea to drink sea water if one is ever stranded in the
sea.

The reason not to drink sea water is two fold.  First, the salts will make
you even thirstier.  The second reason is that sea water contains many
salts, one of which is magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt).  Magnesium sulfate
causes diarrhea and if you are stranded without drinking water, you will
lose water from body, dehydrate, body temp will increase, and you have a
good chance of dieing.