Mechanism behind origin of life found?
Researchers have found that a “molecular network” with self-perpetuating capability may have triggered a possible mechanism by which life got a foothold on the early earth.
Recent mathematical research sheds light on a possible mechanism by which life may have gotten a foothold in the chemical soup that existed on the early earth.
Researchers have proposed several competing theories for how life on earth could have gotten its start, even before the first genes or living cells came to be.
Despite differences between various proposed scenarios, one theme they all have in common is a network of molecules that have the ability to work together to jumpstart and speed up their own replication — two necessary ingredients for life.
However, many researchers find it hard to imagine how such a molecular network could have formed spontaneously — with no precursors — from the chemical environment of early earth.
“Some say it’s equivalent to a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling the random pieces of metal and plastic into a Boeing 747,” said co-author Wim Hordijk from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre in Durham, North Carolina.
In a previous study, Wim Hordijk and colleague Mike Steel of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand used a mathematical model of simple chemical reactions to show that such networks might form more easily than what many researchers thought.
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