[Rockhounds] A New Clue to How Life Originated

[Paul]

A New Clue to How Life Originated
A long-standing mystery about early cells has a solution???
and it???s a rather magical one. Ed Young, The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/interlocking-puzzle-allowed-life-emerge/595945/

Did Amino Acids Stabilize Prebiotic Membranes?
A possible solution to a long-standing question about early cells
Astrobiology at NASA
https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/solving-a-long-standing-origin-of-life-puzzle/

First cells may have emerged because building blocks of proteins
stabilized membranes, University of Washington, August 12, 2019
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190812155502.htm

The paper is:

Caitlin E. Cornell, Roy A. Black, Mengjun Xue, Helen E. Litz,
Andrew Ramsay, Moshe Gordon, Alexander Mileant, Zachary
R. Cohen, James A. Williams, Kelly K. Lee, Gary P. Drobny, and
Sarah L. Keller. Prebiotic amino acids bind to and stabilize
prebiotic fatty acid membranes. PNAS, 2019 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1900275116
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/08/06/1900275116

Yours,

Paul H.