Life may not have begun with a dramatic lightning strike into the ocean but from many smaller "microlightning" exchanges among water droplets from crashing waterfalls or breaking waves.
New research from Stanford University shows that water sprayed into a mixture of gases thought to be present in Earth's early atmosphere can lead to the formation of organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds, including uracil, one of the components of DNA and RNA.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, adds evidence - and a new angle - to the much-disputed Miller-Urey hypothesis, which argues that life on the planet started from a lightning strike. That theory is based on a 1952 experiment showing that organic compounds could form with application of electricity to a mixture of water and inorganic gases.
In the current study, the researchers found that water spray, which produces small electrical charges, could do that work all by itself, no added electricity necessary.
"Microelectric discharges between oppositely charged water microdroplets make all the organic molecules observed previously in the Miller-Urey experiment, and we propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life," said senior author Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and professor of chemistry in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.
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Richard Zare | Do Pham
