Scientists find potential 'missing link' in chemistry that led to life on Earth
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.
Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found a compound that may have been a crucial factor in the origins of life on Earth.
Biochemistry
Nov 6, 2017
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Scientists for the first time have found strong evidence that RNA and DNA could have arisen from the same set of precursor molecules even before life evolved on Earth about four billion years ago.
Biochemistry
Apr 1, 2019
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Early life forms on Earth may have been able to generate metabolic energy from sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal that possibly predates the evolution of chlorophyll and photosynthesis. If retinal has ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2018
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(Phys.org) —Scientists may not know for certain whether life exists in outer space, but new research from a team of scientists led by a University of South Florida astrobiologist now shows that one key element that produced ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 4, 2013
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Antarctica is an icy place today, but the ice extended even further during past ice ages. The question of how and where life survived on land in the icy continent, through the ages, has long puzzled biologists.
Plants & Animals
Mar 25, 2023
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Around 4 billion years ago, Earth was an inhospitable place, devoid of oxygen, bursting with volcanic eruptions, and bombarded by asteroids, with no signs of life in even the simplest forms. But somewhere amid this chaotic ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 9, 2018
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A new study of modern sea sponges is beginning to tell us how early life forms such as sea sponges found ways to survive in extreme environments prior to the evolution of modern life and the oxygenation of Earth's oceans ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 11, 2018
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Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is, along with DNA and protein, one of the three primary biological macromolecules and was probably the first to arise in early life forms. In the "RNA world" hypothesis, RNA is able to support life ...
Biochemistry
Nov 6, 2018
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