Researchers discover new 'origin of life' chemical reaction
Four billion years ago, Earth looked very different from today, lifeless and covered by a vast ocean. Over millions of years, in that primordial soup, life arose. Researchers have long theorized how molecules come together to trigger this transition. Now, scientists at Scripps Research have discovered a new set of chemical reactions that use cyanide, ammonia, and carbon dioxide — all thought to be common on the early Earth — to produce amino acids and nucleic acids, the building blocks of protein and DNA. “We have come up with a new paradigm to explain the shift from prebiotics to biotic chemistry,” says Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, PhD, a professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, and lead author of the new paper, published July 28, 2022 in the journal Nature Chemistry. “We think the type of reaction we’ve described is probably what could have happened on the early Earth.” In addition to providing researchers with insight into early Earth chemistry, the newly discovered chemical