origin-of-life

Testing a Rock-RNA world to create early Life Prof. Dieter Braun, AG Braun, Physics, LMU Munich - Germany LIVE SEMINAR: Tuesday 5th May 2026 16:00 CEST EAI Zoom We are…

Deep beneath the ocean’s surface, mineral-rich hydrothermal vents may have hosted a critical chemical reaction that helped spark life on Earth. Researchers at the University of Alberta report that they may have identified a missing piece in one of science’s biggest questions: how life first began on Earth. Many scientists think life started deep on [...]

The Genesis Project On The Origin Of Life Becomes A National Centre Of Competence In Research The Federal Council has approved funding for the “Genesis” project on the origins of life, led by ETH Zurich in collaboration with the University of Lausanne. Genesis is one of six new National Centers of Competence in Research (NCCRs). How did life emerge on Earth? Is there life elsewhere in the univers…

Researchers are uncovering how a poisonous chemical could have helped life emerge. A chemical that is deadly to humans may have contributed to the earliest steps toward life on Earth. Hydrogen cyanide can freeze into solid crystals at low temperatures. Computer modeling work reported in ACS Central Science shows that certain crystal surfaces are highly [...]

Life’s chemistry may begin in the cold darkness of space The building blocks of life may be forming in deep space long before planets are born. - Date: - January 21, 2026 - Source: - Aarhus University - Summary: - New experiments reveal that protein precursors can form naturally in deep space under extreme cold and radiation. Scientists found that simple amino acids bond into peptides on interste…

The exact moment when life began on Earth may be forever hidden from us. But scientific research can explore the events leading up to that moment. Researchers have mad a lot of progress in finding the building blocks of life and in understanding how they formed. New research in ACS Central Science extends that understanding. It's titled "Electric Fields Can Assist Prebiotic Reactivity on Hydrogen…

How did life begin on Earth? Based on studies of fossilized bacteria, scientists theorize that life first emerged on Earth over 4 billion years ago as simple, single-celled organisms. Over time, these organisms evolved to incorporate photosynthesis and sexual reproduction, eventually giving rise to more complex multicellular organisms, plants, and, eventually, mammals. Despite this scientific con…

This micro-lightning can drive chemical reactions that produce compounds needed for the natural formation of life on Earth, experiments show.

Assistant Professor, Purdue University Who am I? I'm an astrobiologist and Assistant Professor in the Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) Department at Purdue University. The focus of my lab, the Laboratory for Origins and Astrobiology Research (LOAR) is to experimentally and theoretically explore the origin of life on Earth and the search for life on other worlds. I will be hiring …

Understanding the origin(s) of life (OoL) is a fundamental challenge for science in the 21st century. Research on OoL spans many disciplines, including chemistry, physics, biology, planetary sciences, computer science, mathematics and philosophy. The sheer number of different scientific perspectives relevant to the problem has resulted in the coexistence of diverse tools, techniques, data, and [……

The gap between chemical evolution and the beginning of biological evolution may be smaller than we originally thought. Two Japanese scientists created a microscopic particle capable of replicating itself, known as a “coacervate droplet”. Link: https://www.studyfinds.org/missing-link-origins-of-life/

Researchers have long sought to understand the origins of life on Earth. A new study conducted by scientists at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI), and the University of New South Wales, among other participating institutions, marks an important step forward in the effort to understand the chemical origins of life. The findings of this study demonstrate how …

Hydrothermal vents: famous for being one of the leading origin-of-life hypotheses; explaining the chicken-and-egg conundrum of DNA and cells. Read more about the teams’ findings and the paradoxes proposed here: Link: https://www.science.org/content/article/was-life-s-first-meal

UWAB Professor David Catling (Earth & Space Sciences Dept.) was recently awarded an additional $1.2M over 3 years (2020-2023) from…

Take chemistry, add energy, get life. The first tests of Jeremy England’s provocative origin-of-life hypothesis are in, and they appear to show how order can arise from nothing. The post First Support for a Physics Theory of Life first appeared on Quanta Magazine

The base pairs that hold together two pieces of RNA, the older cousin of DNA, are some of the most important molecular interactions in living cells. Many scientists believe that these base pairs were part of life from the very beginning and that RNA was one of the first polymers of life. But there is a problem. The RNA bases don't form base pairs in water unless they are connected to a polymer ba…

Jeffrey Bada is a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He and his colleagues reanalyzed the classic experiment concerning the origins of life conducted by Stanley Miller who along with Harold Urey realized what we know today as the Miller-Urey experiment. This experiment showed that organic compounds can be created with no relative difficulty from inorganic substances. Bada was a st…