A New Clue to How Life Originated

[Oxytropidoceras]

A New Clue to How Life Originated

A long-standing mystery about early cells has a solution—

and it’s a rather magical one. Ed Young, The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/interlocking-puzzle-allowed-life-emerge/595945/

 

Did Amino Acids Stabilize Prebiotic Membranes?

A possible solution to a long-standing question about early cells

Astrobiology at NASA

https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/solving-a-long-standing-origin-of-life-puzzle/

 

First cells may have emerged because building blocks of proteins

stabilized membranes, University of Washington, August 12, 2019

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190812155502.htm

 

The paper is:

 

Caitlin E. Cornell, Roy A. Black, Mengjun Xue, Helen E. Litz, 

Andrew Ramsay, Moshe Gordon, Alexander Mileant, Zachary 

R. Cohen, James A. Williams, Kelly K. Lee, Gary P. Drobny, and 

Sarah L. Keller. Prebiotic amino acids bind to and stabilize

prebiotic fatty acid membranes. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900275116

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/08/06/1900275116

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.