Molecular Origin of Life: What Formed First – Protein, DNA or RNA or a Combination Thereof?
‘Several questions about origin of life have been answered, but much remains to be studied’’ said Stanley Miller and Harold Urey way back in 1959...........
#biology #DNA #originoflife #PROTEIN #Rajeevsoni #Reviews #RNA
Rajeev Soni
#originoflife
0 posts0 participants0 posts today
The unreasonable likelihood of being - #OriginOfLife, terraforming, and AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18545 -> What Were the Chances of Abiogenesis? https://www.universetoday.com/articles/what-were-the-chances-of-abiogenesis
arXiv.orgThe unreasonable likelihood of being: origin of life, terraforming, and AIThe origin of life on Earth via the spontaneous emergence of a protocell prior to Darwinian evolution remains a fundamental open question in physics and chemistry. Here, we develop a conceptual framework based on information theory and algorithmic complexity. Using estimates grounded in modern computational models, we evaluate the difficulty of assembling structured biological information under plausible prebiotic conditions. Our results highlight the formidable entropic and informational barriers to forming a viable protocell within the available window of Earth's early history. While the idea of Earth being terraformed by advanced extraterrestrials might violate Occam's razor from within mainstream science, directed panspermia -- originally proposed by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel -- remains a speculative but logically open alternative. Ultimately, uncovering physical principles for life's spontaneous emergence remains a grand challenge for biological physics.
17-Jul-2025
On the origins of life: recreating cellular #metabolism
Researchers have reached a crucial step in understanding how living cells may have evolved from nonliving matter
EurekAlert!On the origins of life: recreating cellular metabolismToday, scientists work to develop synthetic cells that mimic living cells, hoping to uncover clues that will help answer the question: how did life on Earth begin? In the past, researchers have focused on compartmentalization, but not on metabolism. Yet this cycle of building up and breaking down molecules is a critical aspect of how living cells respond to environmental stimuli, replicate and evolve. Now researchers from the University of California San Diego have designed a system that synthesizes cell membranes and incorporates metabolic activity.
https://www.europesays.com/2227934/ ‘Space Ice’ Experiments Pour Cold Water on Panspermia Origin of Life Theories #AmorphousIce #CambridgeUniversity #OriginOfLife #panspermia #space #SpaceIce #UniversityCollegeLondon
How did life originate on Earth? #OriginOfLife 
28-May-2025
Chemists recreate how #RNA might have reproduced for first time
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1085301 #science #astrobiology #RNAworld #OriginOfLife
EurekAlert!Chemists recreate how RNA might have reproduced for first timeChemists at UCL (University College London) and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have demonstrated how RNA (ribonucleic acid) might have replicated itself on early Earth – a key process in the origin of life.
New preprint drop: The PEG Reactor is now live on OSF!
What if symbolic overload isn’t just noise—but a structural force?
A thought experiment meets proto-biotic recursion: vibrational logic, nested feedback, and the architecture of self.
Read here 
https://osf.io/preprints/osf/nzsw3_v1
osf.ioOSF
Tiny Sparks in Water May Have Triggered Life on Earth, a New Study Suggests
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a64211848/microlightning-life-on-earth/
Popular Mechanics · Tiny Sparks in Water May Have Triggered Life on Earth, a New Study Suggests
23-Jan-2025
Terahertz pulses induce #chirality in a non-chiral crystal
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1071529
intriguing. Could perhaps another far-fetched explanation for the #homochirality of #biomolecules be based on this? #science #physics #OriginOfLife #astrobiology
EurekAlert!Terahertz pulses induce chirality in a non-chiral crystalChirality is a fundamental property of matter that determines many biological, chemical and physical phenomena. Chiral solids, for example, offer exciting opportunities for catalysis, sensing and optical devices by enabling unique interactions with chiral molecules and polarized light. These properties are however established when the material is grown, that is, the left- and right-handed enantiomers cannot be converted into one another without melting and recrystallization. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and the University of Oxford have shown that terahertz light can induce chirality in a non-chiral crystal, allowing either left- or right-handed enantiomers to emerge on demand. The finding, reported in Science, opens up exciting possibilities for exploring novel non-equilibrium phenomena in complex materials.
28-Nov-2024
Scientists reveal possible role of iron sulfides in creating life in terrestrial hot springs
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1066350 #science
#OriginOfLife #astrobiology
EurekAlert!Scientists reveal possible role of iron sulfides in creating life in terrestrial hot springsAn international team of scientists recently published a study highlighting the potential role of iron sulfides in the formation of life in early Earth’s terrestrial hot springs. According to the researchers, the sulfides may have catalyzed the reduction of gaseous carbon dioxide into prebiotic organic molecules via nonenzymatic pathways.
Continued thread
/2 older:
Peptides in Stardust May Have Provided Shortcut to Life
https://www.quantamagazine.org/peptides-on-stardust-may-have-provided-a-shortcut-to-life-20220308
All 5 building blocks of DNA, RNA found in meteorites from Canada, U.S., Australia
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/meteorites-ingredients-life-1.6432333
First evidence of cell membrane molecules in space
All cells on Earth are made of phospholipid membranes. Now astronomers have found the component molecules in interstellar space.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/first-evidence-of-cell-membrane-molecules-in-space
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29139126
Quanta Magazine · Peptides on Stardust May Have Provided a Shortcut to Life | Quanta MagazineThe discovery that short peptides can form spontaneously on cosmic dust hints at more of a role for them in the earliest stages of life’s origin, on Earth or elsewhere.
Continued thread
/1 older:
Uracil in carbonaceous asteroid 162173/Ryugu
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36904-3
Origins of building blocks of life
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230111104321.htm
RNA compound & vitamin B3 found in samples from near-Earth asteroid
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/world/ryugu-asteroid-organic-molecules-scn/index.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35259595
Scientists Discover Protein in Meteorite
https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-discover-protein-meteorite
First evidence of cell membrane molecules in space
https://www.astronomy.com/science/first-evidence-of-cell-membrane-molecules-in-space
NatureUracil in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu - Nature CommunicationsUracil was identified in the sample returned from the asteroid Ryugu. Having been provided to the early Earth as a component in such asteroidal materials, these molecules might have played a role for prebiotic chemical evolution on the early Earth
Astronomers Discover Complex Carbon Molecules in Interstellar Space
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-discover-complex-carbon-molecules-in-interstellar-space
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41946381
* lg molecules containing carbon in distant interstellar cloud of gas/dust
* gradually building picture of how life on Earth evolved
* complex organic, pre-biological molecules needed to form life may have come from space
Detection of interstellar 1-cyanopyrene: A four-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq6391
ScienceAlert · Astronomers Discover Complex Carbon Molecules in Interstellar SpaceA team led by researchers at MIT in the United States has discovered large molecules containing carbon in a distant interstellar cloud of gas and dust.
Nanostructures In Hydrothermal Vents Hint at the Origins of Life on Earth
#Science #Chemistry #Biology #OriginOfLife #HydrothermalVents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkuAzdS-VwA
Summary:
Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth...
#earth #originoflife #solarsystem #planetaryscience #elements #chemistry #science #research https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241011141553.htm
25-Sep-2024
#Nanostructures in the deep ocean floor hint at life’s origin
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1059126 #science #OriginOfLife #astrobiology #nanoworld
EurekAlert!Nanostructures in the deep ocean floor hint at life’s originResearchers from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan and The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) of Tokyo Institute of Technology have discovered inorganic nanostructures surrounding deep-ocean hydrothermal vents that are strikingly similar to molecules that make life as we know it possible. These nanostructures are self-organized and act as selective ion channels, which create energy that can be harnessed in the form of electricity. Published Sep. 25 in Nature Communications, the findings impact not only our understanding of how life began, but can also be applied to industrial blue-energy harvesting.
8-AUG-2024
The search for the earliest traces of life on Earth
uOttawa team explores carbon in 3.9-billion-year-old Canadian rocks
The isotopic composition of carbon in iron formations from the Saglek-Hebron Complex in #Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) has been seen as evidence of the earliest traces of life on #Earth. But a new study suggests otherwise.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1054055 #science #originOfLife #astrobiology
EurekAlert!The search for the earliest traces of life on EarthThe isotopic composition of carbon in iron formations from the Saglek-Hebron Complex in Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) has been seen as evidence of the earliest traces of life on Earth. But a new study by the University of Ottawa, Carleton University and University College London suggests otherwise.
Wir reden diese Woche über euer Feedback und es gab viel zu besprechen:
den Urknall und vor allem seine Lautstärke
das Alter des Urvorfahren allen Lebens LUCA
der interstellare Besucher Oumuamua
https://astrogeo.de/astrogeoplankel-urknall-laerm-urvorfahr-oumamua/ 
Letzterer führte nicht nur zwischen Franzi und Karl zu Kontroversen - sondern auch zwischen euch! Zum Glück aber können wir ja über alles reden, nicht? 