A team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge has detected the chemical fingerprints of possible signs of life on a planet outside the solar system. Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they identified the molecules dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) in the atmosphere of the exoplanet K2-18b, which […]
Biochemistry
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Why are All Living Beings on Earth Made with the Same Versions of Certain Molecules?: The Mystery of Homochirality
Why are all living beings on Earth made with the same versions of certain molecules and not their mirror images? This is the question that has baffled scientists for decades. A new study published in the scientific journal Symmetry by researcher Michele Fiore explores this enigma and its possible answers, bringing us closer to understanding […]
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Iron Was The First and Only Metal of Life’s Origin
Life as we know it relies on small quantities of metals to perform essential biological functions like breathing, DNA transcription, and energy conversion. Since the earliest forms of life floated in Earth’s primordial oceans, metals have played a crucial role in these processes. Almost half of the enzymes—proteins that drive chemical reactions within cells—require metals […]
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Organic Material on Mars Sheds Light on Life’s Origins
NASA’s Curiosity rover, a robotic explorer on Mars for nearly 12 years, has made recent findings of sedimentary organic material with unique properties have scientists buzzing. These carbon-based materials, particularly their carbon isotope ratios, have led to intriguing questions about their origins. On Earth, similar organic materials are usually linked to microorganisms, but they can […]
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Molecular Interactions that Led to Life Contradict Newton’s Third Law of Motion
Researchers from the Universities of Pennsylvania and Maine have discovered that, contrary to Newton’s third law of motion, not every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This finding, published in the journal Chem, could help understand how certain molecular interactions evolved in a pre-life world. The team, led by Ayusman Sen, a professor of […]
