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posted by mrpg on Thursday October 05 2017, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the yes dept.

Life on Earth began somewhere between 3.7 and 4.5 billion years ago, after meteorites splashed down and leached essential elements into warm little ponds, say scientists at McMaster University and the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Their calculations suggest that wet and dry cycles bonded basic molecular building blocks in the ponds' nutrient-rich broth into self-replicating RNA molecules that constituted the first genetic code for life on the planet.

The researchers base their conclusion on exhaustive research and calculations drawing in aspects of astrophysics, geology, chemistry, biology and other disciplines. Though the "warm little ponds" concept has been around since Darwin, the researchers have now proven its plausibility through numerous evidence-based calculations.

[...] The spark of life, the authors say, was the creation of RNA polymers: the essential components of nucleotides, delivered by meteorites, reaching sufficient concentrations in pond water and bonding together as water levels fell and rose through cycles of precipitation, evaporation and drainage. The combination of wet and dry conditions was necessary for bonding, the paper says.

Original URL: Did life on Earth start due to meteorites splashing into warm little ponds?

Origin of the RNA world: The fate of nucleobases in warm little ponds (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1710339114) (DX)

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:48AM (2 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:48AM (#577346) Journal

    Unlikely.. Apart from his ability to type, DN is more likely a leftover sample of the original pond slime (spontaneous local generation, or interplantary hitchhiker).

    Wasn't there an article in the last few months about spontaneous amino acid/RNA creation in lab-version early Earth water?

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:46AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:46AM (#577375) Journal

    Wasn't there an article in the last few months about spontaneous amino acid/RNA creation in lab-version early Earth water?

    And you reckon DN were spontaneous generated? in lab-version early Earth water?
    I tend to favour more the "stupid creation" hypothesis.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:22PM (#577617)

    You'll need to be more specific about what was new in that.

    spontaneous amino acid/RNA creation in lab-version early Earth water

    On this topic, the thing that comes to my mind is the The Miller-Urey experiment[1], published in 1953. [wikipedia.org]

    That used an aqueous solution with lots of volatiles in the mix and a spark in the "atmosphere" to simulate lightning.

    [1] I really hate it when folks needlessly/improperly use em dashes in page titles/URLs.

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