The origin of life is one of the ultimate questions: it combines all our scientific knowledge, our innate curiosity, and our important human egos in one creation conundrum. When we find the answer it’ll inform our attitudes of everything from evolution to existence (which works out well, as those who think they already have the answers written down by dead people aren’t interested in evolution anyway). And we’re getting closer all the time.
A research trio, Drs Szotack, Bartel and Luisi, posed the ultimate chicken-and-egg question when they asked “Which came first - the genetics or the cell?” and came up with an unconventional solution: both. The cell isn’t much use without the genetic cargo constructing the next generation, while without the shielding cell wall a complex DNA molecule won’t survive long.
Members of the team have gone on to show how simple proto-cells could have formed: simple fatty acids naturally form double-layered spherical shells, a kind of Cell Beta, which automatically take up suitable chemicals from the environment and even divide into smaller spheres. The simplistic “cell” walls also act as a size filter meaning that small nucleotides can enter but the larger compound constructions inside can’t leak out - but they can divide.
Of course, reality isn’t quite so storybook simple and there are still a bunch of issues to iron out (the fatty shells and genetic cargo may be able to divide, but they haven’t done both together in the lab just yet), but we’re making excellent progress. It took Earth a couple billion years to get it going the first time - adding a decade to the remake isn’t exactly shattering the timeline.
Luke McKinney.
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