Latest news with #StanleyMiller
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Tiny Sparks in Water May Have Triggered Life on Earth, a New Study Suggests
The origin of life on Earth is one of science's biggest questions, and previous theories have suggested that lightning may have played a role. While previous studies say volcanic or atmospheric lightning may have triggered chemical reactions that created organic molecules, a new study says that microlightning between oppositely-charged water droplets could have been the cause. These imperceptible charges would overcome some of the original lightning theories' limitations while providing a new avenue for exploration into life's origins. Why is there anything instead of nothing? The question is one of the greatest mysteries underpinning nearly every scientific field. Particle physicists ponder why matter exists, when the Big Bang should've produced self-annihilating antimatter in equal measure. Neuroscientists explore why animals exhibit forms of subjective consciousness rather than just a collection of electrical impulses. Biologists explore perhaps the most vital question of all: how did Earth give rise to life? Of course, such a profound question is bound to inspire a plethora of possible theories—both scientific and otherwise. One of the leading theories, first proposed by American scientists Stanley Miller and Harold C. Urey back in 1953, suggests that atmospheric lightning may have kickstarted the production of amino acids by inducing chemical reactions on early Earth. This idea continues to hold sway today, as a Harvard University study last year supported the idea that cloud-to-ground lightning strikes (particularly ones produced by volcanic activity) could've provided life's necessary ingredients, including molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. However, some critics suggest that such a genesis theory likely has a low probability, due to lightning's infrequency and the dispersal of the ingredients required for this theory to take place. Now, a new study from Stanford University similarly explores the idea of life's electrifying beginnings, but in another context—microlightning in water droplets. This new idea suggests that spray from waterfalls or breaking waves could have created its own electricity between oppositely charged water droplets. This could theoretically address one of the main concerns of the original theory, as the 'lightning' is located among water droplets themselves. The results of the study were published in the journal Science Advances. 'We usually think of water as so benign, but when it's divided in the form of little droplets, water is highly reactive […].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,' Richard Zare, senior author of the study from Stanford, said in a press statement. 'I think this overcomes many of the problems people have with the Miller-Urey hypothesis.' In the study, Zare and his team used high-speed cameras to capture flashes of light called 'microlightning' between large positively-charged water droplets and smaller negatively charged ones. They sent sprays of room temperature water into a chamber filled with nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia gases—a.k.a. the atmosphere of early Earth. The team found that this reactive water created the molecules necessary for life with carbon-nitrogen bonds, including hydrogen cyanide, the amino acid glycine, and uracil. 'Microelectric discharges between oppositely charged water microdroplets make all the organic molecules observed previously in the Miller-Urey experiment, and we propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of molecules that constitute the building blocks of life,' Zare said in a press statement. Both biologists and astrobiologists have thoroughly established the importance of water for habitable worlds, but if this new theory holds up to scrutiny, that importance has been drastically understated. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
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
