scientists many theories About how the earth’s raw materials are made changed to Although it is a living cell, the new proposal is particularly slimy.

In a recent paper, an international team argues that life may have first arisen in sticky slime clumps stuck to rocks, long before true cells existed.

similar to the bacterial biofilms we see today rock, pond water surfaceeven your unbrushed teethThe semi-solid gel matrix provides the perfect place for life to set up shop. The authors suggestOn Earth and possibly on other planets as well.

This concept of jelly life is a bit niche. Most theories of the origin of life are First organic chemistry underwaternot goo.

But these theories also struggle to explain how simple molecules, of the kind that were probably floating around in Earth’s oceans, turned into something so complex. RNA (ribonucleic acid) or DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) without any additional support.

A gel-like environment could potentially solve several of these problems at once.

“While many theories focus on the function of biomolecules or biopolymers, our theory instead incorporates the role of gels in the origin of life.” say Tony Jia, an astrobiologist at Hiroshima University.

Jia and his co-authors propose that gel media could trap and organize molecules into structures stable enough to overcome some important barriers in pre-life chemistry.

early earth It was not the relatively benign ozone environment we know today. Intense ultraviolet light could hit the earth’s surface unhindered, and temperatures rose to extremes.

The researchers suggest that prebiotic gels could provide much-needed protection against life’s fragile chemicals long before actual membrane-bound cells developed.

In this theory, First proposed in 2005 To elaborate further here, the protocell was not the first step in the origin of life, but rather was the result of the chemical organization established by the primitive Gu.

“Here we outline a prebiotic gel-first framework that considers the possibility that early life emerged within a gel matrix attached to a surface,” the researchers said. write.

“Such prebiotic gels may have enabled primitive chemical systems to overcome important barriers in prebiotic chemistry by enabling concentration of molecules, selective retention, reaction efficiency, and environmental buffering.”

They propose that in these early gels, the initial noise of metabolism may have arisen as chemicals exchanged electrons. In addition to visible and infrared light, ultraviolet light transmitted through the gel may have provided additional energy for chemical reactions within the gel, similar to photosynthesis in plants today.

Related: Organic matter on Mars is difficult to explain without life, finds NASA-led research

gel can be concentrated monomeractivated nucleotides and amino acids, etc. the team addsare configured to selectively retain certain chemicals and not interact with other chemicals.

The moist but not completely wet environment within the gel matrix facilitates reactions that combine monomers to form polymers (complex molecules like our own bodies). hydrolysis A reaction in which a chemical is broken down into smaller parts.

This expands our search for life beyond Earth. Gel-like structures, rather than specific chemicals, could be the target of future missions searching for life in space.

This study chemical systems chemistry.