Earth didn’t always harbor life. But around 4 billion years ago, something in the environment changed, and systems with biological properties began to emerge.
Earth didn’t always harbor life. But around 4 billion years ago, something in the environment changed, and systems with biological properties began to emerge. Many scientists believe a lively dance of molecules called amino acids is partly responsible for the shift: Molecules linked up, broke apart and eventually came together to form life as we know it.
We might never know exactly how the process worked, but chemists today have made new discoveries that build upon promising theories for how life formed.
“How chemistry led to complex life is one of the most fascinating questions that mankind has pondered,” says Luke Leman, PhD, assistant professor of chemistry at Scripps Research. “There are a lot of theories about the origins of proteins but not so much experimental laboratory support for these ideas.”
Leman recently co-led a study into the very recipe for life on early Earth; the research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He worked closely with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Center for Chemical Evolution, which is supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA.
Read more at: The Scripps Research Institute
Photo Credit: Wikilmages via Pixabay
