Latest news with #RichardZare
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
'Microlightning' Could Help Solve a Crucial Question on How Life Began
Life's building blocks may not have been crafted in the lightning flashes of a tempest, a new study suggests, so much as in the ceaseless glow of rolling ocean mists. Researchers from Stanford University have demonstrated a phenomenon they call 'microlightning' is able to generate organic compounds necessary for life, putting a far gentler spin on the long-disputed Miller-Urey model of biogenesis. Their experiments show that a spray of charged water droplets can exchange electrons in tiny sparks of light, and sufficiently ionize gas in the surrounding air to encourage carbon and nitrogen to bond into larger compounds. Though the findings fall short of explaining how a mix of basic molecules merged into the first replicating cells, they pose yet another possible path for the synthesis of compounds that form the basis of proteins and DNA. "Microelectric discharges between oppositely charged water microdroplets make all the organic molecules observed previously in the Miller-Urey experiment," says senior author and chemist Richard Zare. "We propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life." In 1952, the American chemist Stanley Miller conducted a series of now-famous experiments under the supervision of the Nobel laureate Harold Urey. Cycling a mix of heated water and simple gases such as methane and ammonia through laboratory apparatus, Miller demonstrated it was possible to create a variety of amino acids by applying a spark of electricity. Though the relevance of the experiment's results to Earth's ancient conditions has been heavily debated, the Miller-Urey study was a landmark in the quest to describe how simple elements that include carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen can come together in complex ways without the guidance of existing life forms. Lightning could feasibly provide the energy required for these chemical reactions, but our planet's oceans are vast and deep. To transform them into a soup of organic acids bubbling with potential, the sky would need to crackle with electrical activity for eons. Inspired by recent experiments that found the voltage between water microdroplets could fix nitrogen into nitrogen oxides, Zare and his colleagues conducted their own, to discover the true power within a cloud of vapor. Their high-speed imaging of sound-levitated water droplets revealed the emission of photons whenever electrons jumped between masses of different sizes and charges. The researchers referred to this effect as microlightning. As tiny as these flashes were, they hinted at an impressive amount of energy concentrated in a tiny space. Spraying a mist into a gas mixture of nitrogen, methane, ammonia, and carbon dioxide, the researchers observed the formation of larger molecules that include the nucleic acids uracil, amino acid glycine, and hydrogen cyanide – a precursor to a soup of other organic building blocks. This doesn't rule out a myriad of other possible avenues for life's chemical precursors to form, whether from lightning, the shock of meteorite impacts, or delivered on the backs of comets. If anything, it could point to an inevitability of biochemistry throughout the Universe. Wherever water is whipped into a mist in the right gases, we might expect life has a chance to assemble. "On early Earth, there were water sprays all over the place – into crevices or against rocks, and they can accumulate and create this chemical reaction," says Zare. "I think this overcomes many of the problems people have with the Miller-Urey hypothesis." This research was published in Science Advances. 'Dark Oxygen' Discovery in Ocean Depths Draws Heavy Debate 'Supergiant' Gold Deposit May Be Worth Over US$80 Billion Whale Pee Transports Nutrients Across Thousands of Miles, Study Reveals
The Independent
14-03-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Tiny ‘microlightning' flashes inside water droplets may have sparked life on Earth
Life may have first emerged on Earth after crashing waterfalls or breaking waves sparked tiny 'microlightning' discharges in water droplets, according to a new study. The research, published in the journal Science Advances, demonstrates that water sprayed into a mixture of gases present in the early atmosphere can lead to the formation of organic chemical compounds such as uracil, one of the molecules in RNA. It reveals that tiny electric discharges between oppositely charged water droplets can make the building block molecules of life. 'We propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life,' study author Richard Zare from Stanford University said. For nearly two billion years after it formed, the Earth contained a swirl of chemicals, but organic molecules needed for making proteins, enzymes, nucleic acids, and other compounds essential for life had not emerged. Precisely how these biological components came about is a mystery. One famous experiment conducted in 1952 by American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey provided a possible explanation: lightning striking the oceans and interacting with early atmospheric gases such as methane, ammonia and hydrogen could have created life-building organic molecules. However, critics pointed out that lightning flashes were too infrequent and the oceans too large and dispersed for this scenario. Now, Dr Zare and his team have an alternate hypothesis that doesn't require infrequent lightning for the emergence of the early organic molecules. Their study shows that larger water droplets often carry positive charges and smaller ones negative. When such oppositely charged droplets come close to each other, sparks jump between them. This is what they call 'microlightning'. The researchers sent sprays of room-temperature water through an Early-earth gas mixture containing nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia, and used high-speed cameras to document the tiny flashes of light. The result was the formation of organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds like hydrogen cyanide, the amino acid glycine, and the RNA chemical uracil. Based on this result, the study claims that lightning strikes are not necessary, and tiny sparks from crashing waves or waterfalls may have jump-started life on the planet. 'On early Earth, there were water sprays all over the place, in crevices or against rocks, and they can accumulate and create this chemical reaction,' Dr Zare said. 'I think this overcomes many of the problems people have with the Miller-Urey hypothesis.'
