Protocells on early Earth may have been formed by squeezing geysers

Protocells on early Earth may have been formed by squeezing geysers

Life

Simulations of the crust of early Earth show that cycles of pressure caused by geysers or tidal forces could have generated cell-like structures and even very simple proteins

By Michael Le Page


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Geysers could have created the right conditions for cell-like structures to originate

Yevhenii Chulovskyi/Shutterstock

Cell-like structures containing very simple proteins and even pores in the membrane around them have been created in lab experiments that aimed to mimic the conditions found in the crust of early Earth.

“We start with very primitive chemicals, and we obtain something with increasing complexity and increasing order,” says Christian Mayer at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. “We believe that this system is very interesting to look at when it comes to the origin of life.”


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