New Research Rejects 80-Year Theory of 'Primordial Soup' as the Origin of Life

[The Straight Story]

New Research Rejects 80-Year Theory of 'Primordial Soup' as the Origin of Life

ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2010) — For 80 years it has been accepted that early life began in a 'primordial soup' of organic molecules before evolving out of the oceans millions of years later. Today the 'soup' theory has been over turned in a pioneering paper in BioEssays which claims it was the Earth's chemical energy, from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, which kick-started early life.

"Textbooks have it that life arose from organic soup and that the first cells grew by fermenting these organics to generate energy in the form of ATP. We provide a new perspective on why that old and familiar view won't work at all," said team leader Dr Nick lane from University College London. "We present the alternative that life arose from gases (H2, CO2, N2, and H2S) and that the energy for first life came from harnessing geochemical gradients created by mother Earth at a special kind of deep-sea hydrothermal vent -- one that is riddled with tiny interconnected compartments or pores."

The soup theory was proposed in 1929 when J.B.S Haldane published his influential essay on the origin of life in which he argued that UV radiation provided the energy to convert methane, ammonia and water into the first organic compounds in the oceans of the early earth. However critics of the soup theory point out that there is no sustained driving force to make anything react; and without an energy source, life as we know it can't exist.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202101245.htm

[dmallind]

1. Worth considering this is a technical disagreement on enregy source, not over abiogenesis

Because I know in about 30 seconds the fundies and their enablers will try to use this as evidence that "even scientists say life from nonlife is impossible and that the primordial soup theory is baloney".

All we're talking about here is exactly what triggered the amino acid compounds, not whether they happened or not.

[The Straight Story]

3. Well fundies believe like/humans started as dust, so they can'argue

that life from nonlife is impossible ;)

[FarCenter]

6. Yes, a misleading headline -- they just moved the soup and changed the ingredients

[JackRiddler]

11. The science press ALWAYS does that. I hate that!

They spectacularize worse than tabloids sniffing celebrity crotch.

[onehandle]

2. God just served science. nt

[gcomeau]

7. I hope that was sarcastic. I really, really do. -nt

[onehandle]

12. Kinda.

But if there is a God, maybe he's just messing with us with this study.

I saw that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Q showed Picard the actual primordial soup.

If you can't trust Star Trek...

[gcomeau]

15. Ummm...

But if there is a God, maybe he's just messing with us with this study.

HOW?

You do understand that all the study says is that we may now have a better idea than we did before of how and where the earliest chemical pre-cursors of modern biological life would have formed... right?

What part of that, in any way whatsoever, could be interpreted as "messing with" the current understanding of evolutionary history as opposed to simply progressing it a bit?

[FarCenter]

4. Their paper is available

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123264090/PDFSTART

How did LUCA make a living? Chemiosmosis in the origin of life

Abstract

Despite thermodynamic, bioenergetic and phylogenetic
failings, the 81-year-old concept of primordial soup
remains central to mainstream thinking on the origin
of life. But soup is homogeneous in pH and redox potential,
and so has no capacity for energy coupling by
chemiosmosis. Thermodynamic constraints make chemiosmosis
strictly necessary for carbon and energy
metabolism in all free-living chemotrophs, and presumably
the first free-living cells too. Proton gradients form
naturally at alkaline hydrothermal vents and are viewed
as central to the origin of life. Here we consider how the
earliest cells might have harnessed a geochemically
created proton-motive force and then learned to make
their own, a transition that was necessary for their
escape from the vents. Synthesis of ATP by chemiosmosis
today involves generation of an ion gradient
by means of vectorial electron transfer from a donor to an
acceptor.We argue that the first donor was hydrogen and
the first acceptor CO2.

[NoPasaran]

5. My college cafeteria served Primordial Soup

I wouldn't recommend it.

[Broke In Jersey]

8. The same with my college cafeteria -

I kept having to tap their little heads with my spoon back under the water to prevent them from evolving before I could finish....

[howard112211]

9. Alrighty then. Cook us some up.

[ChickMagic]

10. The primordial soup theory was recreated in a laboratory

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

These folks are just arguing about what caused the irradiation.
They haven't discounted abiogenesis at all.

[Johonny]

17. I agree

Given the collision environment of the early Earth most people consider that deep sea replication was very important reservoir for the development of early life. It's unclear though it means the first self replicating molecules HAD to have their origin there.

[ChickMagic]

18. It certainly could have been a 2-tiered system

Lab tests have shown that RNA could have formed in primordial pools, but DNA may well have first combined in a deep sea environment. Phosphates are more plentiful in deep sea vents and that appears to be a very important element for combination.

[Swede]

13. I like soup.

[liberal_at_heart]

14. There are still several theories on the origin of life

Evolution has been pretty well established and the Big Bang is even pretty well established but there is still alot of research going on into the origin of life on Earth. I think the primordial soup has been the leading theory but there are still a few more theories out there too like the hydrothermal vent theory. I'm not sure there is enough evidence yet to conclude which theory is correct but the primordial soup one does seem to lead the pack.

[RedCloud]

16. Sulfur is an important life element. If the top world screws up ...

we still have sulfur organisms in the deep. Check and mate. But not so religious guys. I am tired of this one point produces all life nonsense. It can happen in lots of places and thrive, die out in some or merge with others.