Scientists from the University of Hiroshima in Japan believe they may have solved one of science's most enduring mysteries — namely, how life sprung from non-living matter in the Earth's early development cycle, a report from New Atlas explains.
In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers detail how they created self-replicating protocells in the lab. They believe these lend weight to the chemical evolution hypothesis, which was first proposed in the 1920s. It states that "life first originated with the formation of macromolecules from simple small molecules, and those macromolecules formed molecular assemblies that could proliferate," Muneyuki Matsuo, first author of the study, explained in a press statement.
The Hiroshima researchers specifically set out to investigate the origin of the molecular assemblies that proliferate from small molecules, as these have remained a mystery ever since the chemical evolution scenario was first hypothesized. In the Hiroshima Univesity press statement, Matsuo calls them "the missing link between chemistry and biology in the origin of life."
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