BIOL 1010 Lecture 22: Lecture 22
14 May 2017
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Document Summary
Submerged volcanoes or deep-sea hydrothermal vents - gaps in earth s crust where hot water and minerals gush into deep oceans - may have provided the initial chemical resources for life. The abiotic synthesis of small organic molecules would have ben a first step in the origin of life. Abiotic synthesis of polymers on early earth, waves may have splashed organic monomers onto fresh law or other hot rocks and then rinsed polypeptides and other polymers back into the sea. Key stop in the origin of life would have been the isolation of collection of organic molecules within a membrane-enclose compartment. Laboratory experiments demonstrate that small membrane-enclosed sacs or vesicles form when lipids are mixed with water. When researchers add to the picture a type of clay thought to have been common nearly earth, such vesicles form at a fast rate. organic molecules become concentrated on the surface of this clay and thus more easily interact.
