Missing link? The power source (battery) for all life on Earth and maybe the universe?

"The mystery of how living organisms sprung out of lifeless rock has long puzzled scientists, but we think that the unusual phosphorus chemicals we found could be a precursor to the batteries that now power all life on Earth. But the fact that it developed simply, in conditions similar to the early Earth, suggests this could be the missing link between geology and biology," said Dr Terry Kee, from the University's School of Chemistry, who led the research.

All life on Earth is powered by a process called chemiosmosis, where the chemical adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the rechargeable chemical 'battery' for life, is both broken down and re-formed during respiration to release energy used to drive the reactions of life, or metabolism. The complex enzymes required for both the creation and break down of ATP are unlikely to have existed on Earth during the period when life first developed. This led scientists to look for a more basic chemical with similar properties to ATP, but that does not require enzymes to transfer energy.

Not Phosphorus V the common form found in many places today but a mineral phosphorus called schreibersite..

It has been assumed that early Earth

was regularly bombarded by meteorites and interstellar dust rich in exotic minerals, including the far more reactive form of phosphorus, the iron-nickel-phosphorus mineral schreibersite

.

Still not a cell but the precursor to powering the cell...no way to extract power no life process begins

The scientists simulated the impact of such a meteorite with the hot, volcanically-active, early Earth by placing samples of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite, an iron meteorite which fell in Siberia in 1947, in acid taken from the Hveradalur geothermal area in Iceland. The rock was left to react with the acidic fluid in test tubes incubated by the surrounding hot spring for four days, followed by a further 30 days at room temperature.

"Chemical life would have been the intermediary step between inorganic rock and the very first living biological cell. You could think of chemical life as a machine -a robot, for example, is capable of moving and reacting to surroundings, but it is not alive. With the aid of these primitive batteries, chemicals became organised in such a way as to be capable of more complex behaviour and would have eventually developed into the living biological structures we see today," said Dr Terry Kee

QUOTE
The team at Leeds are now working with colleagues at JPL-Caltech to understand how these early batteries and the 'chemical life' they became part of might have developed into biological life. As part of this work they will be using facilities in the University of Leeds' Faculty of Engineering, currently used to test new fuel cells, to build a 'geological fuel cell' using minerals and gases common on the early Earth. Researchers will apply different chemicals to its surface and monitor the reactions take place and the chemical products which develop.END QUOTE: www.sciencedaily.com...

Eubacteria and Archaebacteria are considered some of, if not the oldest forms of life on earth ever found. Simple life forms indeed but all life needs a power source and these studies and experiments are answering some of the basic questions of how, what, and when. I really do like the diversity of the above posted web sight in that some of the latest stuff in science is reported/discussed without much hype and on a level most can understand.
For those who are interested thanks for reading

www.sciencedaily.com...

"Textbooks have it that life arose from organic soup and that the first cells grew by fermenting these organics to generate energy in the form of ATP. We provide a new perspective on why that old and familiar view won't work at all," said team leader Dr Nick lane from University College London. "We present the alternative that life arose from gases (H2, CO2, N2, and H2S) and that the energy for first life came from harnessing geochemical gradients created by mother Earth at a special kind of deep-sea hydrothermal vent -- one that is riddled with tiny interconnected compartments or pores."

The hydrothermal vents of the early ocean are a strong possibility where everything came together and life on Earth began. More about Chemiosmosis:

"Far from being too complex to have powered early life, it is nearly impossible to see how life could have begun without chemiosmosis," concluded Lane. "It is time to cast off the shackles of fermentation in some primordial soup as 'life without oxygen' -- an idea that dates back to a time before anybody in biology had any understanding of how ATP is made."

reply to post by 727Sky


Interesting theory. If I remember right Phosphorus is also present in deoxyribonucleic acid itself. Great find, Star and Flag!

www.sciencedaily.com...

Life's Raw Materials May Have Come From The Stars, Scientists Confirm:

The materials they have found include the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.

Between 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago large numbers of rocks similar to the Murchison meteorite rained down on Earth at the time when primitive life was forming. The heavy bombardment would have dropped large amounts of meteorite material to the surface on planets like Earth and Mars.

reply to post by 727Sky


Can't help but think how this concept can lead to yet another form of free energy. Can't wait to see how long it takes to get this study shelved....for National Security reasons of course.

Nice find, thanks for sharing!

Originally posted by 727Sky
Life's Raw Materials May Have Come From The Stars, Scientists Confirm:

Well, as Isaac Asimov himself pointed out, all atoms in your body and around you, especially those heavy ones, come from material ejected in space because of previous supernovae. So technically we are all the children of the stars.

And if this is what drives us on the physical plane then what drives us in the spiritual?

Originally posted by swanne

Originally posted by 727Sky
Life's Raw Materials May Have Come From The Stars, Scientists Confirm:

Well, as Isaac Asimov himself pointed out, all atoms in your body and around you, especially those heavy ones, come from material ejected in space because of previous supernovae. So technically we are all the children of the stars.

And we function just like them too! We are all like mini-universes.