Chemists discover plausible recipe for early life on Earth

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Chemists discover plausible recipe for ... e on Earth

Date: January 8, 2018

Source: Scripps Research Institute

Summary: Chemists find key chemical reactions that support life today could have been carried out with ingredients likely present on the planet four billion years ago.

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.

"This was a black box for us," said Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at TSRI and senior author of the new study. "But if you focus on the chemistry, the questions of origins of life become less daunting."

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.

Every aerobic organism, from flamingoes to fungi, relies on the citric acid cycle to release stored energy in cells. In previous studies, researchers imagined early life using the same molecules for the citric acid cycle as life uses today. The problem with that approach, Krishnamurthy explai20ns, is that these biological molecules are fragile and the chemical reactions used in the cycle would not have existed in the first billion years of Earth -- the ingredients simply didn't exist yet.

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).

Continues...

[Nikki Nyx]

To quote another scientist, "Fascinating." Also, I can't help but be impressed that Dr. Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy learned to spell his own name before adulthood. (Or, possibly, was simply unable to stop spelling it...like bananananananana.) It reminds me of my cousin, who gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia...combined with a consonant-heavy and long Polish surname. I wonder if she's learned how to spell it yet.

[OlegTheBatty]

Actual Link with Chemical Cycle Embedded

[OlegTheBatty]

To quote another scientist, "Fascinating." Also, I can't help but be impressed that Dr. Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy learned to spell his own name before adulthood. (Or, possibly, was simply unable to stop spelling it...like bananananananana.) It reminds me of my cousin, who gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia...combined with a consonant-heavy and long Polish surname. I wonder if she's learned how to spell it yet.

And you know he is spelling it correctly because?

[Nikki Nyx]

To quote another scientist, "Fascinating." Also, I can't help but be impressed that Dr. Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy learned to spell his own name before adulthood. (Or, possibly, was simply unable to stop spelling it...like bananananananana.) It reminds me of my cousin, who gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia...combined with a consonant-heavy and long Polish surname. I wonder if she's learned how to spell it yet.

And you know he is spelling it correctly because?

Good point!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't let that Hindi your admiration.

[OlegTheBatty]

Don't let that Hindi your admiration.

Was that a pun jab?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Don't let that Hindi your admiration.

Was that a pun jab?

No, just a Sikh joke.

[Gord]

...gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia....

I met a woman yesterday who told me her name was "Jenny with a G" (presumably Genny, then). I told her I was "Gord with a J". Now she thinks I drive a Jaguar. I don't. What should I do?

[bobbo_the_Pragmatist]

I met a girl in a bar once who said her name was Jenny Hunsucker. I told her I was part German.

...................the story continues to a happy ending.

[Gord]

That didn't solve my problem.

[OlegTheBatty]

...gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia....

I met a woman yesterday who told me her name was "Jenny with a G" (presumably Genny, then). I told her I was "Gord with a J". Now she thinks I drive a Jaguar. I don't. What should I do?

I can think of 3 options"

1. drive a jaguar (if you had a horse and a cowboy hat, you could drive a whole herd of jaguars)
2. shoot her
3. move to Zimbabwe

[Nikki Nyx]

4. Put a Jaguar logo on the back of your current vehicle.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Back in 2010 a 1985 Jaguar made a left turn in front of me. We met left headlight to left headlight. Trashed both vehicles. The driver of the Jag was born before WWII started and was probably in a world of his own right then. They hauled both vehicles to the same tow lot and when I went to get my things out of the Blazer I saw the Jag a few spaces away. I found my screwdriver and pulled the Jaguar logo off the other wreck. Still have it.

[scrmbldggs]

...gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia....

I met a woman yesterday who told me her name was "Jenny with a G" (presumably Genny, then). I told her I was "Gord with a J". Now she thinks I drive a Jaguar. I don't. What should I do?

Tell her your name ain't Gord.

[Nikki Nyx]

...gifted her daughter with the unfortunate combination Genevieve Anastasia....

I met a woman yesterday who told me her name was "Jenny with a G" (presumably Genny, then). I told her I was "Gord with a J". Now she thinks I drive a Jaguar. I don't. What should I do?

Tell her your name ain't Gord.

Or that you drive a 'Jaguar with a G.'

[Gord]

Hmm, none of those solutions will work for me. I would accept the Jaguar logo, though, if Gawdz is willing to send it to me. But that's for a different project I'm working on.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hmm, none of those solutions will work for me. I would accept the Jaguar logo, though, if Gawdz is willing to send it to me. But that's for a different project I'm working on.

FOAD, you don't get my tyrophy.

[Gord]

Hmm, none of those solutions will work for me. I would accept the Jaguar logo, though, if Gawdz is willing to send it to me. But that's for a different project I'm working on.

FOAD, you don't get my tyrophy.

What about a trade? I've got two VWs and a Fnord (wait a minute, "Fnord"? is that right? where did I get a Fnord??).




P.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnord

[Nikki Nyx]

I don't know where you got it from, but you really should...