Theoretical origin of life: meteorites have all five bases (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 30, 2023, 15:27 (272 days ago) @ David Turell

Latest analysis:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/all-of-the-bases-in-dna-and-rna-have-now-been-found...

"Space rocks that fell to Earth within the last century contain the five bases that store information in DNA and RNA, scientists report April 26 in Nature Communications.

"These “nucleobases” — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — combine with sugars and phosphates to make up the genetic code of all life on Earth. Whether these basic ingredients for life first came from space or instead formed in a warm soup of earthly chemistry is still not known. But the discovery adds to evidence that suggests life’s precursors originally came from space, the researchers say.

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"The researchers think their milder extraction technique, which uses cold water instead of the usual acid, keeps the compounds intact. “We’re finding this extraction approach is very amenable for these fragile nucleobases,” Glavin says. “It’s more like a cold brew, rather than making hot tea.”

"With this technique, Glavin, Oba and their colleagues measured the abundances of the bases and other compounds related to life in four samples from meteorites that fell decades ago in Australia, Kentucky and British Columbia. In all four, the team detected and measured adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, thymine, several compounds related to those bases and a few amino acids."

Comment: there are 20 essential amino acids in life, all left-handed. The article, as usual ignores the point. The other caveat is finding some of the ingredients of life's doesn't tell us how the working biochemistry of life was formed.