(Press-News.org) Hot vents on the seabed could have spontaneously produced the organic molecules necessary for life, according to new research by UCL chemists. The study shows how the surfaces of mineral particles inside hydrothermal vents have similar chemical properties to enzymes, the biological molecules that govern chemical reactions in living organisms. This means that vents are able to create simple carbon-based molecules, such as methanol and formic acid, out of the dissolved CO2 in the water.
The discovery, published in the journal Chemical Communications, explains how some of the key building blocks for organic chemistry were already being formed in nature before life emerged - and may have played a role in the emergence of the first life forms. It also has potential practical applications, showing how products such as plastics and fuels could be synthesised from CO2 rather than oil.
"There is a lot of speculation that hydrothermal vents could be the location where life on Earth began," says Nora de Leeuw, who heads the team. "There is a lot of CO2 dissolved in the water, which could provide the carbon that the chemistry of living organisms is based on, and there is plenty of energy, because the water is hot and turbulent. What our research proves is that these vents also have the chemical properties that encourage these molecules to recombine into molecules usually associated with living organisms."
The team combined laboratory experiments with supercomputer simulations to investigate the conditions under which the mineral particles would catalyse the conversion of CO2 into organic molecules. The experiments replicated the conditions present in deep sea vents, where hot and slightly alkaline water rich in dissolved CO2 passes over the mineral greigite (Fe3S4), located on the inside surfaces of the vents. These experiments hinted at the chemical processes that were underway. The simulations, which were run on UCL's Legion supercomputer and HECToR (the UK national supercomputing service), provided a molecule-by-molecule view of how the CO2 and greigite interacted, helping to make sense of what was being observed in the experiments. The computing power and programming expertise to accurately simulate the behaviour of individual molecules in this way has only become available in the past decade.
"We found that the surfaces and crystal structures inside these vents act as catalysts, encouraging chemical changes in the material that settles on them," says Nathan Hollingsworth, a co-author of the study. "They behave much like enzymes do in living organisms, breaking down the bonds between carbon and oxygen atoms. This lets them combine with water to produce formic acid, acetic acid, methanol and pyruvic acid. Once you have simple carbon-based chemicals such as these, it opens the door to more complex carbon-based chemistry."
Theories about the emergence of life suggest that increasingly complex carbon-based chemistry led to self-replicating molecules - and, eventually, the appearance of the first cellular life forms. This research shows how one of the first steps in this journey may have occurred. It is proof that simple organic molecules can be synthesised in nature without living organisms being present. It also confirms that hydrothermal vents are a plausible location for at least part of this process to have occurred.
The study could also have a practical applications, as it provides a method for creating carbon-based chemicals out of CO2, without the need for extreme heat or pressure. This could, in the long term, replace oil as the raw material for products such as plastics, fertilisers and fuels.
This study shows, albeit on a very small scale, that such products, which are currently produced from non-renewable raw materials, can be produced by more environmentally friendly means. If the process can be scaled up to commercially viable scales, it would not only save oil, but use up CO2 - a greenhouse gas - as a raw material.
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New Haven, Conn. -- Yale researchers successfully corrected the most common mutation in the gene that causes cystic fibrosis, a lethal genetic disorder.
The study was published April 27 in Nature Communications.
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited, life-threatening disorder that damages the lungs and digestive system. It is most commonly caused by a mutation in the cystic fibrosis gene known as F508del. The disorder has no cure, and treatment typically consists of symptom management. Previous attempts to treat the disease through gene therapy have been unsuccessful.
To ...
This news release is available in German. Bumblebees are considered peaceful and industrious creatures, and their commercial value has increased in the wake of the decline of honeybees around the world. The bees are therefore now bred on a large scale and used as pollinators for economically valuable crops. Yet, these cute little, buzzing creatures, of which there are around 250 different species worldwide, is doing poorly in some places. The large shadow cast by the honeybee collapse has distracted from the fact that in recent years in the US as well as in other areas ...
(Boston)--Cardiorespiratory fitness may positively impact the structure of white matter in the brains of older adults. These results suggest that exercise could be prescribed to lessen age-related declines in brain structure.
The findings, which appear online in the Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, are the first to show a relationship between fitness and brain structure in older adults, but not younger adults.
The researchers compared younger adults (age 18-31) to older adults (age 55-82). All participants had MRIs taken of their brains and their cardiorespiratory ...
April 25, 2015, Vienna, Austria: Preliminary data from an ongoing study revealed today at The International Liver Congress™ 2015 suggest that a combination of three direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) is well tolerated in patients with severe renal impairment or end-stage renal disease when used either with or without ribavirin. In addition, the combination led to rapid hepatitis C viral load suppression with no virological failures seen in the preliminary data from the ongoing open-label study.
In the study, treatment naïve non-cirrhotic adults with chronic ...
SAN DIEGO - Technology can bolster efforts by parents, lawmakers and insurance companies to reduce distracted driving among novice teen drivers, according to a study to be presented Monday, April 27 at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in San Diego.
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of accidental death for teens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Studies suggest that the use of voice/text devices while driving is associated with crash risks up to 24 times higher than when cell phones are not used to talk or text ...
SAN DIEGO - Parents-to-be often look forward to prenatal ultrasounds, when they get the first glimpse of their baby and perhaps learn their child's sex. Ultrasound technology also allows for the detection of birth defects and other abnormalities before a baby is born.
While prenatal ultrasounds are doing a good job of identifying critical congenital heart disease, those living in poor or rural communities are less likely to find out their baby has heart disease before birth than those in more affluent or urban communities, according to research to be presented Monday, ...
High school students subjected to bullying and other forms of harassment are more likely to report being seriously depressed, consider suicide and carry weapons to school, according to findings from a trio of studies reported at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting in San Diego.
"Teens can be the victim of face-to-face bullying in school, electronic bullying outside of the classroom and dating violence," said Andrew Adesman, MD, senior investigator of all three studies. "Each of these experiences are associated with a range of serious adverse consequences."
All ...
WASHINGTON -- Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center and American University have shown that, like humans, mustached bats use the left and right sides of their brains to process different aspects of sounds. Aside from humans, no other animal that has been studied, not even monkeys or apes, has proved to use such hemispheric specialization for sound processing -- meaning that the left brain is better at processing fast sounds, and the right processing slow ones.
The scientists say their study, published in Frontiers of Neuroscience, opens a pathway to ...
A new smoking-specific survey has been developed that is much better than a currently available general health questionnaire at discriminating between different types of 'otherwise healthy' smokers. This test could be useful in determining the potential health impact of next generation tobacco and nicotine products on smokers who switch.
Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is a measure of the day-to-day functioning and well-being of a person that is used to assess the effect of illness or injury over time. HRQoL measurements are important to public policy, because ...
A new analysis has found that, among patients with cancer, rates of health insurance coverage vary by patient demographics and by cancer type. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that the expansion of coverage through the Affordable Care Act may disproportionally benefit certain patient populations.
In the United States, an estimated 48 million individuals live without health insurance. To examine how insurance coverage differs among cancer patients according to various individual factors such ...
