origins of life

Finding the origins of life in a drying puddle

Researchers find wet and dry cycles result in important chemical processes

Georgia Tech graduate student Sheng-Sheng Yu holds a sample subjected to repeated wet-dry cycles. Credit and Larger Version

July 20, 2015

Anyone who's ever noticed a water puddle drying in the sun has seen an environment that may have driven the type of chemical reactions that scientists believe were critical to the formation of life on the early Earth.

Research at Georgia Institute of Technology reported this week in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Editiondemonstrates that important molecules of contemporary life, known as polypeptides, can be formed simply by mixing amino and hydroxy acids--which are believed to have existed together on the early Earth--then subjecting them to cycles of wet and dry conditions./.../