Molecules of Life on Primordial Earth

How did life start? It’s a question that has intrigued humans ever since we became conscious of ourselves and our place in the world. Now, researchers from Newcastle University in the UK may have an answer. By investigating the conditions that may have allowed living systems to emerge from inert geological materials 3.5 billion years ago, the team were able to produce organic molecules that may have been the stuff of life.

When they mixed hydrogen, bicarbonate, and iron-rich magnetite under conditions similar to those of mild hydrothermal vents, the researchers were able to create a spectrum of molecules, including fatty acids that were up to 18 carbon atoms in length.

This result potentially reveals how key molecules that underpin life can be made from inorganic chemicals. This has big implications for our understanding of how life may have formed on the Earth billions of years ago. In particular, this study offers a plausible genesis for organic molecules that form cell membranes that were possibly selectively chosen by early biochemical processes on the ancient Earth.  READ MORE...

The Dark Side of Biology

Life on the primordial Earth got started early. The oldest microfossils—found by a British team in Canada—may date back as far as 3.8 billion years and were probably living on the ocean floor at a volcanic vent. Other organics rained from the sky, brewed by lightning or solar radiation. © Michael Carroll

Gene Roddenberry populated his Star Trek universe with a wide variety of aliens. Budget constraints dictated that most were variations of humans, with skin tinted odd colors or antennae sticking out from their heads. Even the silicon-based Horta appeared to be a stagehand lurking under a decorated carpet. George Lucas treated us to a similar menagerie of off-world inhabitants in Star Wars, especially in his Mos Eisley Cantina. Aliens—and our concept of them—became more sophisticated as budgets soared and science grappled with the great question posed by Enrico Fermi: “Where is everybody?” Some were terrifying, like the creatures in the Alien movie series or H. G. Wells’s conspiring Martians in War of the Worlds. Perhaps our propensity for seeing extrasolar life as terrifying is our natural fear of the unknown. But others were far more benign and advanced, as witnessed by Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Steven Spielberg’s cuddly E.T., Edmund H. North’s guardians of the worlds in The Day the Earth Stood Still, or the time-jumping beings of Eric Heisserer’s Arrival. But at the heart of a good story is a good conflict, and aliens provide natural fodder for such a plot device.     READ MORE...