Today, life on Earth relies immensely on an external power source—namely, solar radiation—to provide the energy needed to forge bonds between atoms and assemble the complex organic compounds necessary for life. Since photosynthesis didn’t evolve until relatively late in the planet’s history, scientists have long debated what source of energy the first organisms utilized, throwing everything from meteorites to lightning strikes into the proverbial ring.
But the metabolism of the planet’s first organisms may not have required an external source of energy. Under the conditions present in a hydrothermal vent, a core set of metabolic reactions unfolds spontaneously in line with the laws of thermodynamics, according to calculations published December 13 in Frontiers of Microbiology.
“The present data uncover a hitherto unique thermodynamic link between core biochemistry as a whole and the conditions of a geochemical environment known to have existed on the early Earth,” writes biochemist John Allen, who ...
