New study sheds light on how earliest forms of life evolved on Earth

A new study led by ANU has shed light on how the earliest forms of life evolved on Earth about four billion years ago. In a major advance on previous work, the study found a compound commonly used in hair bleach, hydrogen peroxide, made the eventual emergence of life possible. Lead researcher Associate Professor Rowena Ball from ANU said hydrogen peroxide was the vital ingredient in rock pores around underwater heat vents that set in train a sequence of chemical reactions that led to the first forms of life. "The origin of life is one of the hardest problems in all of science, but it is also one of the most important," said Dr Ball from the Mathematical Sciences Institute and Research School of Chemistry at ANU. The research team made a model using hydrogen peroxide and porous rock that simulated the dynamic, messy environment that hosted the origin of life. "Hydrogen peroxide played multiple roles in the emergence of living systems, and this study investigated how it ensured the randomly fluctuating temperatures and pH levels necessary to energise the production of a chemical world that made life on Earth possible," Dr Ball said. "Our simulations reveal the importance of long rock pores or lengthy, interconnected porous structures in enabling the creation of long, large molecules." The research advances upon previous studies by modelling the flow of reactive species through porous rock rather than through a single pore.