Is it Earth’s destiny to sustain life? At least the one we know

By Marta Koblańska, February 16, 10:30, Photo: PIRO, Pixabay

When a new life is arising, an old one is passing away. Ancient beliefs about life cycles may be true, as chemistry sets up the foundations for environmental processes crucial for emerging life on Earth.

One of the greatest ever philosophers, Baruch/Benedictus Spinoza, claimed that Earth in the clash with the Universe was like a box of matches and people living on the Blue Planet were not even matches but rather a match’s heads (do not confuse it with head). So, how did we become part of Earth and this tiny part of the Universe? Years after Spinoza, many scientists searched for the answer, but no one completely succeeded. Possibly, some of them got close, like Alexandr Oparin, as well as Polish priest Włodzimierz Sedlak. The latter believed a prebiotic soup of molecules and light could have contributed to life.

New character of life-cycles

Now, scientists from Israel (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) in a newly published study in,,Nature Chemistry” invert the common view that life arising possibly from non-living matter is an absolute coincidence. They say, instead, the chemistry of prebiotic conditions available on ancient Earth created a good base for wet and dry cycles of molecules’ reactions, bonds, and breakups, which resulted in the first organic and then living matter. What is more, in their experiment in the laboratory where the scientists mimicked conditions of prehistoric Earth, they observed that selected biomaterial behaved in line with already set patterns. That excluded random bonds and thus random evolution of the chemical bases, which we all have in our bodies.

By demonstrating that chemical systems can self-organize and evolve in structured ways, we provide experimental evidence that may help bridge the gap between prebiotic chemistry and the emergence of biological molecules,

say Kavita Matange and dr Moran Frenkel-Pinter, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Of course, all of this is not so simple. There are millions of mechanisms, as well as chemical and biological features, influencing life that arise along with conditions necessary to sustain it. But the study shows that in the case of selected molecules, which chemistry stipulates billions (but only some of them have the potential for life-origin), life is not impossible to create. Science fiction? Not exactly.

What did scientists discover?

Israeli scientists have confirmed that chemical compounds can continuously evolve without reaching equilibrium. This means that, in addition to creating products during a chemical reaction, the process also generates substrates—compounds that contribute to these products and potentially others. As a result, the final amounts of these ingredients may not always correspond directly.

 

This finding supports the idea that ancient beliefs about life may hold some truth. The compounds studied demonstrate a plasticity in their transformation, influenced by the selection of active chemical mechanisms during the process. Additionally, there can be significant differences between different populations of these compounds, although the dynamics of these populations are synchronized.

Is it safe for us to get control of life-origin? Yes and no. Yes, because we can realize how fragile life is. No, because we are gaining enormous power on it.