Lifelike chemistry created in lab search for ways to study origin of life

The researchers subjected their chemical soups to a form of selection by taking a small amount of material from one vial and placing it in a new vial with fresh pyrite and chemicals. After multiple generations, they found evidence of chemical networks, represented in yellow, spreading quick enough to avoid dilution. Image courtesy of David Baum lab University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have cultivated lifelike chemical reactions while pioneering a new strategy for studying the origin of life. The work is far from jumpstarting life in the lab. Yet, it shows that simple laboratory techniques can spur the kinds of reactions that are likely necessary to explain how life got started on Earth some four billion years ago. The researchers subjected a rich soup of organic chemicals to repeated selection by constantly paring down the chemical population and letting it build back up again with the addition of new resources. Over generations of selection, the system appeared to consume its raw materials, evidence that selection may have induced the spread of chemical networks capable of propagating themselves.