How the first biomolecules could have been formed

Wolfgang Weigand discusses with his colleague Dr Mario Grosch via Zoom Image: Anne Günther (University of Jena) - The chemical precursors of present-day biomolecules could have formed not only in the deep sea at hydrothermal vents, but also in warm ponds on the Earth's surface. The chemical reactions that may have occurred in this "primordial soup" have now been reproduced in experiments by an international team led by researchers of Friedrich Schiller University Jena. They even found that one of the nucleobases, which represent the code of our genetic material, could have originated from the surface of our planet. The Earth is around 4.6 billion years old and was not always a place that was hospitable to life. In the first hundred million years, our planet's atmosphere consisted primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen cyanide, also known as hydrocyanic acid. Free oxygen did not exist. Under these conditions, iron sulphide, which is transformed into iron oxide when exposed to oxygen, is stable.