Origins of Life on Earth May Have Begun at Underwater Vents

A new scientific study calls into question the long-standing theory that life on Earth arose out of a “primordial soup” of organic compounds in the sea, and instead asserts that the building blocks of life came from geochemical reactions near hydrothermal vents deep under the ocean. The new research, conducted by a team of European and U.K. scientists and published in the journal Bioessays, refutes the 80-year-old theory that life began when the sun provided the energy to convert methane, ammonia, and water into the building blocks of the first cells. Instead, the researchers contend that life arose from geochemical processes — involving gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide — found around hydrothermal vents. The reactions involving these gases ultimately generated lipids, proteins, and nucleotides to produce the first cells. The processes that occur around the vents, known as chemiosmosis, have been proven to have the ability to produce living cells. “It is time to cast off the shackles of fermentation in some primordial soup” as the origin of life, said the research team leader, Nick Lane from University College, London.