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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Chemists have found a series of chemical reactions that could have led to the first life on Earth:
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a fascinating new theory for how life on Earth may have begun. Their experiments, described today in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrate that key chemical reactions that support life today could have been carried out with ingredients likely present on the planet four billion years ago.
[...] For the new study, Krishnamurthy and his coauthors, who are all members of the National Science Foundation/National Aeronautics and Space Administration Center for Chemical Evolution, focused on a series of chemical reactions that make up what researchers refer to as the citric acid cycle.
[...] Leaders of the new study started with the chemical reactions first. They wrote the recipe and then determined which molecules present on early Earth could have worked as ingredients. The new study outlines how two non-biological cycles—called the HKG cycle and the malonate cycle—could have come together to kick-start a crude version of the citric acid cycle. The two cycles use reactions that perform the same fundamental chemistry of a-ketoacids and b-ketoacids as in the citric acid cycle. These shared reactions include aldol additions, which bring new source molecules into the cycles, as well as beta and oxidative decarboxylations, which release the molecules as carbon dioxide (CO2).
As they ran these reactions, the researchers found they could produce amino acids in addition to CO2, which are also the end products of the citric acid cycle. The researchers think that as biological molecules like enzymes became available, they could have led to the replacement of non-biological molecules in these fundamental reactions to make them more elaborate and efficient.
Linked cycles of oxidative decarboxylation of glyoxylate as protometabolic analogs of the citric acid cycle (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02591-0) (DX)
Previously: Diamidophosphate (DAP): "Missing Link" for Abiogenesis? (also by The Scripps Research Institute)
Related: Did Life on Earth Start Due to Meteorites Splashing Into Warm Little Ponds?
Life's First Molecule Was Protein, Not RNA, New Model Suggests
Analysis of Microfossils Finds that Microbial Life Existed at Least 3.5 Billion Years Ago
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday October 05 2017, @06:58AM (11 children)
No.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:10AM (9 children)
Drip, drip, drip. And, No Comment? Just a question, for the three Soylents left.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:20AM (8 children)
The D¡¢κ n¡99ers are busy with young pussy, not interested in dealing with the 3 old cunts here.
(Score: -1, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:24AM (4 children)
Just as I thought. If only I had an iota to refudiate this going rouge by Young Refuglicans!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:26PM (3 children)
Going red? Nahhh, you ain't got it in you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:18PM (2 children)
Once again, Runaway, read it again. It does not say what you think it says.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 06 2017, @01:17AM (1 child)
Rouge, as in Baton Rouge, which is French for Red Stick. Republicans are red, right? Democrats are blue, right? You're going rouge? Come on, you made a spelling mistake when you typed rogue.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Friday October 06 2017, @01:30AM
Red is for Commie! A relic of the Cold War such as yourself should know this! And you did not catch the double-Palin? "Refudiate" and "Rouge" in the same sentence? Republicans want to break teacher unions and un-fund education, because they cannot spell, and resent people who can. Darn liberal snobs!
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:48AM (2 children)
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?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:46AM
And you reckon DN were spontaneous generated? in lab-version early Earth water?
I tend to favour more the "stupid creation" hypothesis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:22PM
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.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @08:12AM
PVLVIS ERIS ET IN PVLVEREM REVERTERIS
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:47AM (3 children)
Researchers overrating their findings. Meteorites coming down at the right moment might have been a necessary conditions for life. But so have been many other events. Such as comets coming down and contributing the water that formed the "warm ponds" in the first place. Of course, the whole exercise requires a lot of assumptions which may or may not be true. A more relevant exercise would be to state a sufficient condition, which more likely than not would show that there are no necessary conditions.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:34AM
One if the necessary conditions it that the world must not be a simulation in a classical computer.
One more reason (if I ever needed one) to convince me that Tron:Legacy is crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 05 2017, @04:33PM (1 child)
Insightful. So many researchers seem so very sure of themselves - but they can offer no proofs. Next year, there will be another study to refute this study - but THEY won't offer any proofs either. Meanwhile, you, me, or anyone can sit around and daydream (with or without the benefit of hallucinogenic drugs) and come to our own, equally valid, conclusions.
I lean toward the panspermia hypothesis. Life didn't originate here on earth. We're all alien life forms, that have adapted to conditions on earth. But, I'm not going to beat the idea to death. There's is no proof, so I'm not going to try convincing you that it's true.
And, none of it matters anyway. Knowing one way or the other would make absolutely no difference to any of us.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday October 05 2017, @10:59PM
OK, let's assume that life began elsewhere and hitchhiked to Earth.
How did that life start? The question doesn't go away by simply offshoring it.
For my money, I care less about which planet the warm pool existed on and more about whether combining the right set of elements under the right set of conditions does actually create life.
You're right though - it doesn't really matter. If this is how life began, the religious can easily say that this was just the mechanism that God worked through (after creating a Universe with the rules that would allow this to happen).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @09:35AM (2 children)
Why do you need meteorites? Isn't the earth just a large ball of the same components that meteorites are made of? What is so special about meteors that earth would not have?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @10:04AM
At the least, meteors/comets delivered metals into the Earth's crust as well as water.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday October 05 2017, @10:06AM
Organic matter formed under the "gentle nudge" of UV and space radiation.
A just formed planet will be hotter than any of those substances can withstand. By contrast, that UV/space radiation, while more energetic per photon/particle than thermal radiation, has quite a low spatial density/flux - takes a long time to form a significant amount of slime precursors, but those already formed have less chances for decomposition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @03:06PM (1 child)
Where'd the water come from? Who made the little pools? Where'd the meteorite come from? So many questions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:25PM
Kolob. Next!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 05 2017, @07:30PM
What's this? The theory is not evolving?