The Washington Post recently graced us with an article
intended to help explain the emergence of life on Earth. It referenced
“primordial soup,” a term coined almost 100 years ago, “to describe the
mysterious chemical broth that was home to Earth’s very first self-replicating
organisms,” and stated that “scientists have been searching for the exact
combination of compounds that gave rise to life as we know it some 4 billion
years ago.” Scientists have also long believed that energy from the sun may
have heated up the ingredients in the “soup,” thereby helping to provide the
precise conditions necessary to lead to the creation of life. Somehow.
Now,
researchers at Georgia Tech think they’ve identified one key ingredient:
thickener. Yes, that’s right, “thickener.” In a study published in Nature Chemistry (subscribe today,
operators are standing by!), scientists attempt to describe how “dissolving
strands of genetic material in a thick, sludgy solution keeps them moving
slowly, giving them time to start the replication process.” (Genetic material replicates whilst dissolving)?
According
to the study’s researchers, states the Post, there are now just two big
questions about how life got started on Earth! “First, how did long nucleic
acids such as RNA and DNA first form? And second, how did they manage to
reproduce themselves?”
Other
than that, we’ve got it pretty much figured out.
Speaking
of life and how it started, what happens after life ends? Happily enough, scientists now say there are also only two
key questions left pertaining to the possibility of an afterlife. First, is
there one? And second, what would it be like? Everything else has been nailed
down.
Of
that, there can be no doubt. The science is settled, you know.
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