Life on Earth may have been jump-started by “microlites.”

Life on Earth may have been jump-started by “microlites.”

By Cody Cotier Edited by Sarah Lewin Frazier

The Earth was swirling with all the gas needed to build life in its early stages. However, they were unable to gather themselves into the components of biology. The process, known as “prebiotic synthesis,” required an external impact. Lightning was an obvious suspect. In 1952, a young chemist named Stanley Miller filled the flask with water along the way, topped it with methane, ammonia and hydrogen, mimicking the planet’s early atmosphere and threw miniature lightning bolts into its fertile soup.

With this A groundbreaking experimentMiller produced several amino acids from inorganic molecules. (The amino acids combine to form proteins, which bind to form living things.) So he showed how life found its first scaffold. However, the actual lightning bolts would have been a rare shock. And mostly in the open ocean, organic compounds would have been dispersed quickly.

Seven decades later, new research points to a more realistic catalyst: water itself. today Advances in sciences, Stanford University chemist Richard Zarre and his colleagues report that organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds can simply be formed Spray water on a mixture of atmospheric gases. The researchers essentially replicated the chemical reactions from Miller’s experiments, but this time they were achieved with a reliable source of energy. “Unlike lightning,” says Zare. “Water sprays are everywhere,” he suggests that each waterfall and wave brought sparks of opportunity for life to emerge.

Supporting science journalism

If you enjoy this article, consider supporting award-winning journalism. Subscribe. Purchase a subscription helps ensure a future of impactful stories about discoveries and ideas that will shape our world today.

It’s all because of the difference in charge between the water droplets. When small, negatively charged droplets approach, they sometimes discharge and produce flashes of luminescence, what researchers call “microlites.” And we found that these interactions create organic byproducts, like the electricity of mirrors. In a watery gas stew, Zaré’s team detected the amino acid glycine and the nucleobase uracil, an important component of RNA.

Stanford University postdoctoral scholar Yifan Meng conducted a physical experiment. At first, Meng recalls that he and his colleagues were more interested in the microlight itself. “But then we saw clear evidence of carbon nitrogen bond formation,” he says. “This is the basics of biological molecules. It was really incredibly exciting.”

However, it would not have been enough for these compounds to form once to advance their lives. That’s why the random lightning strike was probably a non-starter. A single molecule called a monomer would have required a repeating process to give it time to link with a long chain of molecular called a polymer. “We need building blocks to focus somewhere,” says Zare.

The ideal environment for this, he argues, was a rock gap near the water spray. Wet dry cycle It is associated with such topography, known to promote polymerization, and can produce complex structures that have become the first single-cell organism. David Deemer, a biochemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, found Zare’s conclusions appealing because he was not involved in the study. Whether it was a pond, a lake or a geyser, Deemer says, “These molecules would have accumulated wherever there was a wave effect or a waterfall.”

This first test was not generated all As for life prerequisites, Meng points out that other important compounds may have been present at undetectable levels. “I hope we can run the experiment longer,” he says. “It should be able to detect more.” I’ll explain in more detail later Miller’s research has produced a wider range of molecules, so future research can confirm that microlight visioning supports full-scale prebiotic synthesis.

There are competing hypotheses about how organic molecules were formed. Some experts believe they were born around deep-sea hydrothermal holes, while others think they’ve caught a vehicle from somewhere in our galaxy to Earth. NASA scientists have announced In January, 14 amino acids were discovered on the asteroid Bennu, along with all five nucleotide bases of RNA and DNA. Given that extraterrestrial objects routinely hinder our planets in the early days, Deemer says, “literally, the compounds necessary for life fell from the sky.”

No one knows what actually happened when life emerged about 4 billion years ago. However, these findings provide evidence for what Miller proposed in the 1950s. Like him He told an interviewer in 1996.“No one ever questioned the chemistry of the original experiment…. The chemistry was very solid.” Perhaps the sparks that drive that chemistry now.