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  • A gel medium could have facilitated pre-life chemistry

    From Pro Plyd@invalide@invalid.invalid to talk-origins on Mon Feb 23 23:05:34 2026
    From Newsgroup: talk.origins


    https://www.sciencealert.com/life-may-have-started-as-sticky-goo-long-before-cells-even-existed

    Scientists have many theories about how
    Earth's raw materials turned into living
    cells, but a new proposal is particularly
    slimy.

    In a recent paper, an international team
    argues that life may have first emerged
    within a blob of sticky goo clinging to a
    rock, long before true cells existed.

    Similar to the bacterial biofilms we see
    today on rocks, pond surfaces, and even your
    unbrushed teeth, a semi-solid gel matrix
    would provide the perfect place for life to
    set up shop, the authors propose, both on
    Earth and, potentially, on other planets.

    This jelly-life notion is a bit niche: Most
    origin-of-life theories set the scene for
    the first organic chemistry in water, not
    goo.

    But those theories also struggle to explain
    how simple molecules of the kind that were
    probably floating around in Earth's waters
    could have transformed into something as
    complex as RNA (ribonucleic acid) or DNA
    (deoxyribonucleic acid) without some extra
    support.

    A gel-like environment could solve several
    of those issues at once.
    ...
    A gel medium, Jia and co-authors propose,
    would be able to trap and organize molecules
    into formations stable enough to overcome
    some key barriers in pre-life chemistry.
    ...


    --- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From RonO@rokimoto557@gmail.com to talk-origins on Tue Feb 24 09:21:23 2026
    From Newsgroup: talk.origins

    On 2/24/2026 12:05 AM, Pro Plyd wrote:

    https://www.sciencealert.com/life-may-have-started-as-sticky-goo-long- before-cells-even-existed

    Scientists have many theories about how
    Earth's raw materials turned into living
    cells, but a new proposal is particularly
    slimy.

    In a recent paper, an international team
    argues that life may have first emerged
    within a blob of sticky goo clinging to a
    rock, long before true cells existed.

    Star Trek Next Generation beat these guys by decades. Q takes Picard to
    the ancient earth and takes Picard to the little pond of goo where life originated, and it was gel like and slimy. Star Trek Next Generation
    wasn't very consistent. They had the progenitors that spread life
    throughout the galaxy. It was why Vulcans and Human DNA was compatible
    enough to produce Spock. The progenitors did not want the galaxy to be
    a lonely place as it had been for them. They seeded life in many places
    in the Galaxy and left a history embedded in the DNA that could only be decoded if multiple different civilizations put their DNA into the
    analysis to produce the message that the progenitors wanted them to
    hear. The Romulan couldn't stand being related to a Klingon and didn't
    want to believe it. Ignorance was the better option.

    Ron Okimoto


    Similar to the bacterial biofilms we see
    today on rocks, pond surfaces, and even your
    unbrushed teeth, a semi-solid gel matrix
    would provide the perfect place for life to
    set up shop, the authors propose, both on
    Earth and, potentially, on other planets.

    This jelly-life notion is a bit niche: Most
    origin-of-life theories set the scene for
    the first organic chemistry in water, not
    goo.

    But those theories also struggle to explain
    how simple molecules of the kind that were
    probably floating around in Earth's waters
    could have transformed into something as
    complex as RNA (ribonucleic acid) or DNA
    (deoxyribonucleic acid) without some extra
    support.

    A gel-like environment could solve several
    of those issues at once.
    ...
    A gel medium, Jia and co-authors propose,
    would be able to trap and organize molecules
    into formations stable enough to overcome
    some key barriers in pre-life chemistry.
    ...



    --- Synchronet 3.21b-Linux NewsLink 1.2