#prebioticchemistry — Public Fediverse posts

Researchers have identified a novel, straightforward chemical reaction involving benzene and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) that efficiently explains the formation of nucleobases, the fundamental building blocks of DNA and RNA.
#PlanetaryAtmosphericChemistry #PrebioticChemistry #Astrobiology #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2026/06/chm06152602.html

It's really cool that we found salt crystals and amino acids on #AsteroidBennu. Salty brine in #space!

It's no surprise to astrobiologists that we found those things; it does not “upend” any of our understanding of #PrebioticChemistry, it confirms what we knew.

Cool discovery, with a false clickbait headline in Nature.

Here's an evo-biologist with more:

“We might have to upend a few theories if these molecules were found to have been assembled by living organisms that had been living on an ancient space rock. But they weren’t, so nobody is rewriting any biology textbooks.”

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/01/29/soup-in-spaaaaace/

@brad

Asteroid fragments upend theory of how life on Earth bloomed https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00264-3

> Not only does Bennu contain all 5 of the nucleobases that form DNA and RNA on Earth and 14 of the 20 amino acids found in known proteins, the asteroid’s amino acids hold a surprise.

I’m curious about what this does to theories of nucleobase formation on earth. I remember reading that adenine and guanine are thought to require very different conditions to cytosine and uracil. (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6316623/#sec2-life-08-00057)

#PrebioticChemistry

#Introduction

Hi there 👋,

I'm Brad, I'm new to Chinwag, but not new to fedi (been here since late 2018).

I'm keen to chat about music, it was a huge part of my life way back when I studied it at uni. I'll give almost anything a good listen but genres I've spent the most time with might be: #Jazz (#HardBop, #PostBop, #FreeJazz), #ClassicalMusic (#ChamberMusic, #Orchestral, #Baroque), #Rock (#AlternativeRock, #PowerPop, #NewWave, #ProtoPunk, #ElectronicRock).

I'm very keen to learn whatever I can from folks who're into the earth and life sciences. #Geology, #Biology, #MolecularBiology, #PrebioticChemistry.

Cheers,
Brad.

30-Nov-2023
Shedding light on the synthesis of #sugars before the #OriginOfLife

Scientists investigate the possible chemical pathways by which pentoses could have formed on early Earth

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1008856 #science #astrobiology #PrebioticChemistry

paper is on open access in JACS Au: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacsau.3c00299 where Au appears to be standing for gold (not for eg alternative universe)

Scientists recreated classic origin-of-life experiment and made a new discovery - Enlarge / Stanley Miller with the original laboratory equipment used in... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1807727 #miller-ureyexperiment #prebioticchemistry #historyofscience #organicmolecules #originoflife #abiogenesis #chemistry #science