Metabolism Without Life
A remarkable chance discovery in a Cambridge University research lab shows that a number of life-sustaining metabolic processes can occur spontaneously and outside of living cells. This opens a rich, new vein of theories and approaches to studying the origin of life. From the New Scientist: Metabolic processes that underpin life on Earth have arisen spontaneously outside of cells. The serendipitous finding that metabolism – the cascade of reactions in all cells that provides them with the raw materials they need to survive – can happen in such simple conditions provides fresh insights into how the first life formed. It also suggests that the complex processes needed for life may have surprisingly humble origins. “People have said that these pathways look so complex they couldn’t form by environmental chemistry alone,”…