Principles of Biology contents

73 Origin of Life
Life on Earth likely began as macromolecules that developed into self-replicating
protocells.

Lightning during a storm.

Scientists hypothesize that forces such as lightning could have provided the energy and circumstances needed for
forming complex organic molecules.
NOAA Research.

Topics Covered in this Module

From Organic Molecules to Self-Replicating Protocells
How Did Macromolecules Assemble from Organic Molecules?

Major Objectives of this Module

Explain how organic molecules self-assemble into macromolecules.
Describe how macromolecules could replicate using templates.
Discuss hypotheses about the formation of self-replicating protocells.

page 375 of 989 4 pages left in this module

Principles of Biology contents

73 Origin of Life

How did life begin? The short answer is we don't quite know. Evidence
comes from a variety of sources: the anatomy and physiology of current life
forms and fossils, geologic findings that show how different the Earth was
earlier in its history, data from astronomy describing how stars and planets
are created, and laboratory experiments that attempt to replicate early life on
a molecular level. Current hypotheses fit the evidence we have, but because
the evidence is limited, they are still hypotheses. There is no coherent,
widely accepted scientific theory about the origins of life.

From Organic Molecules to Self-Replicating Protocells

How are plants and animals different from rocks and water? Living
organisms reproduce themselves. Even the simplest bacteria produce copies
of their single cells. How could this complicated process have evolved?
Scientists generally agree on a basic trajectory. First, organic molecules
(molecules containing carbon) developed, then macromolecules, then
protocells. At what point in this process did the molecules become
self-replicating, or living?

How did organic molecules originate?

Our best interpretation of the scientific evidence available is that a sequence
of events like the following might have occurred: About 4.6 billion years ago,
dust and rocks around our Sun condensed to form our solar system,
including Earth. The planet would have been battered by rocks and ice
hurtling through space, keeping it too hot for water to form until conditions
calmed down between 4.2 and 3.9 billion years ago. The atmosphere was
probably made up primarily of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, but volcanic
eruptions might have contributed methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide.
As the planet cooled, water vapor in the atmosphere condensed, forming
seas. Most of the hydrogen could have escaped into space. Geological
evidence suggests that almost as soon as the oceans formed, life began.
In the 1920s, two scientists — J. B. S. Haldane, in Britain, and A. I. Oparin,
in Russia — independently hypothesized that early Earth might have had a
reducing atmosphere that, along with energy from ultraviolet radiation or
volcanic explosions, could create organic molecules. A reducing environment
is one that adds electrons to molecules. Haldane called this early
environment a "primitive soup."
In 1953, Stanley Miller, a graduate student working in Harold Urey's lab at
the University of Chicago, tried to replicate the atmospheric conditions of
early Earth to determine how life could have begun (Figure 1). He simulated
lightning and volcanic eruptions, both conditions that create reducing
environments. Under the conditions he created, simple chemicals changed
into complex organic molecules, including amino acids (the building blocks of
protein). Other scientists have replicated these results. One of Miller's former
graduate students, Jeffrey Bada, reanalyzed Miller's original samples in 2008
using modern equipment and found additional amino acids Miller had not
detected.
 Figure 1: The Miller-Urey experiment.
This illustration of the Miller-Urey experiment shows a series of glass
tubes and compartments containing water, water vapor, methane, and
electric charge.
© 2011 Nature Education All rights reserved. Figure Detail
Miller and Urey might have produced the wrong atmospheric conditions for
replicating early Earth. More recent evidence suggests that the early
atmosphere was mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide, making it closer to
neutral: neither electron-adding nor electron-removing. Researchers have
repeated experiments like Miller's with a simulated atmosphere made
primarily of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, and these researchers have also
found organic molecules. Based on these findings, a reducing atmosphere
does not appear to be necessary for synthesizing organic molecules.
Another possibility is that life did evolve in a reducing atmosphere but not in
the atmosphere that was typical on most of the planet. How would that have
been possible? About 30 years ago, geologists discovered hydrothermal
vents on the ocean floor. Now many of these vents have been identified, in
the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. They arise near volcanoes or
where tectonic plates are moving apart, in places where the magma beneath
the Earth's crust is exposed, and heat the seawater to temperatures as high
as 405°C (761°F). Seawater sinks into the ocean crust, leaches minerals and
metals from the rocks, and then boils up and emerges into the cooler
seawater as hot springs. The dissolved material precipitates out, often
causing what's known as a "black smoker." Hydrogen sulfide and methane
create a reducing environment. Nearby, temperatures drop dramatically and
the chemical environment changes.
A very hot, acidic environment may sound inhospitable, but many organisms
live in or near hydrothermal vents. Archaebacteria in black smokers obtain
their energy from hydrogen sulfide and replicate at temperatures as high as
121°C (250°F), hotter than any other known organism. These
microorganisms are among the most evolutionarily stable organisms known
(Figure 2). Their presence in hydrothermal vents constitutes one piece of
evidence supporting the idea that life evolved there. Fossilized
microorganisms have also been found in fossilized black smokers, including
sulfide deposits dated to over 3 billion years ago. Hydrothermal vents would
have existed on earth as soon as water did, around 4.2 billion years ago.
Some of the organisms found on hydrothermal vents today, such as
siboglinid tubeworms, might be "living fossils," some of the least-changing
organisms to have evolved.

Figure 2: Unique organisms living in a hydrothermal vent.

Some organisms found in hydrothermal vents might be "living fossils" of
some of the earliest organisms to evolve on Earth. Panel a): Siboglinid
tubeworms (Sclerolinum contortum) spread across the side of a hydrothermal
vent in front of white mats of microbes. Panel b): A close-up of the
siboglinid tube worms with small gastropods (Pseudosetia griegi and Skenea
spp.) on the tubes.
© 2010 Nature Publishing Group Pedersen, R. B., et al. Discovery of a
black smoker vent field and vent fauna at the Arctic Mid-Ocean
Ridge. Nature Communications 1 (2010) doi:10.1038/ncomms1124. Used
with permission.

Hydrothermal vents also house bacteria that obtain their energy from
methane. The process that these bacteria use to fix carbon dioxide and
produce ATP, the molecule that provides energy to cells, is similar to the
pathway the mitochondria in our own cells use. It is, however, more efficient,
producing more energy-containing molecules per cycle. This bacterial
process might resemble a metabolic pathway that could have sustained
early-evolving microorganisms.
An alternate theory of how organic molecules arose on Earth is that they did
not form on Earth but simply landed here. A meteorite, called the Murchison
meteorite, landed in Australia in 1969. It contained more than 70 amino
acids, many in large quantity and some that were unusual. Some of these
amino acids were present in two configurations, called L and D. D and L
isomers are different forms of the same molecule, like mirror images or right
and left hands. While nearly all of the amino acids on Earth are in the L
configuration, many of those on the meteorite were in the D configuration.
Later research found hints of terrestrial contamination of the meteorite but
also uncovered evidence that at least some of the amino acids and some
other molecules had an extraterrestrial origin. The Murchison meteorite also
contained other organic compounds, including lipids, nitrogenous bases, and
simple sugars, for a count of more than 14,000. Of course, the real answer
may be a combination of both theories — it is entirely possible that
macromolecules both arrived on asteroids and evolved in deep-sea vents.
In 2010, astronomers found something else exciting on an asteroid: ice.
Scientists don't know exactly when the current supply of water on Earth
developed. One hypothesis is that an extraterrestrial object collided forcefully
with the proto-Earth and began to orbit proto-Earth as our moon. That event
would have vaporized any water on the planet at the time. Could all of our
water have been delivered by asteroids?
Astronomers once thought the asteroids traveled too close to the Sun to
maintain ice (Figure 3). But then, Andrew Rivkin and Joshua Emery, looking
through an infrared telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, found a pattern in the
radiation reflecting off an asteroid that indicated ice and organic materials.
The astronomers monitored the asteroid, called 24 Themis, over six years.
Another team of scientists, led by Humberto Campins, independently
confirmed Rivkin and Emery's results. The asteroid 24 Themis is about three
times further from the Sun than the earth is, but because asteroids have no
atmosphere, that distance is usually too close for ice to stay on the surface.
Researchers think the ice may be emerging gradually from a reservoir under
the asteroid's surface. Perhaps asteroids brought water to Earth, too, and not
just organic molecules. Of interest, even a planet as close to Sun as Mercury
might, according to recent findings, have pockets of ice in craters at its poles.

Figure 3: The asteroid Gaspra, photographed by the Galileo

spacecraft.
One hypothesis about the origin of life holds that ice and organic
molecules came to Earth on asteroids.
NASA. Figure Detail

The possibility of asteroids bringing the building blocks of life to Earth raises
an intriguing question: if life could happen on Earth, could it also be
happening on other planets? After all, we have known since the 17th century
that our Sun is just one of many Suns within our galaxy. Cosmologists Carl
Sagan and Stephen Hawking, among other prominent scientists, have
argued that life on Earth is unlikely to be the only life in the universe. After
all, if it could happen here, why not on another planet with similar conditions?
Test Yourself

What is one explanation for why most isomers of amino acids in living things are those in the
L configuration?

Submit

Future perspectives and open questions.

24 Themis might not be representative of asteroids near Earth. It could have
formed much farther from the Sun and later been knocked in closer. If
asteroids near Earth rarely contain water or organic molecules, it would be
less probable that those asteroids played a role in the origin of life. Another
factor is the isotope ratio of the ice. If deuterium, or heavy hydrogen (which
contains an extra neutron and is therefore "heavy"), were found in the same
ratio on the asteroid as on Earth, this result would support an asteroid origin
hypothesis. Julie Castillo-Rogez, an astrophysicist at NASA, has suggested
that NASA send robotic and manned missions to search for water and ice on
asteroids near Earth. Now that researchers have also pretty clearly
established the presence of ice and water on Mars, the question of
extreplanetary delivery becomes even more interesting.
Scientists speculate not just about the origin of organic molecules in general,
but also about the origins of particular molecules that would have been
necessary at particular stages in the evolution of life. For example, RNA
formation requires both ribose and phosphate. Where did these ingredients
come from? Ribose will form from two simple sugars, but it breaks down
rapidly in an alkaline, or basic, solution. Alonso Ricardo, a researcher at
Harvard University, has studied ways to stabilize ribose. Phosphorus, a
critical component of the phosphate backbone connecting ribose molecules
in RNA, is abundant in the Earth's crust but usually isn't released into water
in large quantities, even around modern volcanoes. In 2005, Matthew Pasek
and Dante Lauretta at the University of Arizona discovered that soluble
phosphate is released from certain meteors. The origin of these molecules is
a field of active research.

IN THIS MODULE

From Organic Molecules to

Self-Replicating Protocells
How Did Macromolecules Assemble from
Organic Molecules?
Summary
Test Your Knowledge

WHY DOES THIS TOPIC MATTER?

The Climate Connection

How is life on Earth reacting to
climate change?

A Sea of Microbes Drives Global

Change
Do floating microbes in the ocean’s
surface waters play an outsize role in global
climate?

SCIENCE ON THE WEB

Stanley Miller Explains

Do your own Miller-Urey experiment

Up Close With Hydrothermal Vents

Browse through underwater images
captured by exploring scientists

page 376 of 989 3 pages left in this module

Principles of Biology contents

73 Origin of Life

How Did Macromolecules Assemble from Organic

Molecules?
How does a simple, single-celled organism survive and reproduce? It needs
macromolecules like DNA and RNA to make proteins. It needs proteins, such
as enzymes, to make DNA and RNA. How were the first molecules made if
there were no enzymes? The answer might have been that jack-of-all-trades
molecule, RNA, or another type of flexible nucleic acid.

BIOSKILL
Was tPNA the First Genetic Material?
Scientists have tried to create self-replicating chains that resemble RNA or
DNA, but once bound together, the chains usually do not rearrange their
base pairs to copy a template. In 2009, the chemist Reza Ghadiri at the
Scripps Research Institute succeeded in creating a synthetic DNA-like
molecule with nucleic acids reversibly bound to a backbone. They created a
backbone from two repeating amino acids, and then attached the bases to it
using adenine thioesters. The molecule is called thioester peptide nucleic
acid (tPNA). When put in solution with a DNA template, tPNA rearranges its
nucleic acids to match up with that particular template. Although tPNA
doesn't look like current nucleic acids, the way it works does seem like a step
toward replication. The next step is to find a way to keep the tPNA together
so it will act as a template for another DNA or PNA strand. PNA is more
chemically stable than RNA, and some researchers think that it might have
been the first genetic material.
Another popular hypothesis is that RNA was the first genetic material.
Scientists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman found that some types of RNA
catalyze reactions, like enzymes. Cech called these RNA catalysts
"ribozymes". Ribozymes also produce nucleotide sequences that directly
complement a piece of RNA, and some ribozymes replicate themselves. Of
those ribozymes, some replicate themselves faster and with fewer errors
than others.
David Bartels at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Alonso
Ricardo and Jack Szostak at Harvard University directed ribozyme evolution
by selecting the most efficient catalysts. After many rounds of selection they
produced ribozymes that could copy short strands of RNA. Tracey Lincoln
and Gerald Joyce at Scripps Research Institute evolved a pair of ribozymes
that could copy each other, but these reactions were catalyzed by complex
macromolecules. Could RNA catalyze its own polymerization? The research
group at Harvard tried to make nucleotide polymers form a double strand
without any catalysts. The reaction took weeks. Then they found that a slight
change to the chemical structure of the sugar component sped up the
reaction so that it occurred in only hours. Although this finding could be a
clue to the origin of modern-day DNA and RNA, the precise structure of the
earliest genetic material remains an open question.

BIOSKILL
How did self-replicating protocells develop?
All cells replicate using DNA in a complicated procedure. The DNA double
helix unwinds and separates into two strands, and proteins stabilize each
strand while several enzymes work to create first an RNA primer, then new
DNA strands that preserve the information contained in the genome. How,
therefore, could a cell replicate without proteins or enzymes?
 Test Yourself

If some ribozymes do not replicate, some replicate with errors, and some replicate quickly and
accurately, what will happen to the population of ribozymes over time?

Submit

Both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells are enclosed in cell membranes: lipid
bilayers with embedded proteins that control what goes in and out of the cell.
How could cell membranes have developed? Adding lipids or other organic
molecules to water results in the creation of vesicles, or fluid-filled sacs.
Vesicle self-assembly is much more likely when montmorillonite, a type of
clay created by weathering volcanic ash, is added along with organic
molecules to the water (Figure 4). The organic molecules cluster on the
surface of the clay. When positioned close together, they are more likely to
form vesicles. The molecules enclosing a vesicle will arrange themselves
into a bilayer, shielding their hydrophobic ends like the lipid bilayer of a cell
membrane.

Figure 4: Nucleic acid polymerization is catalyzed by clay particles.

Lab experiments have shown that nucleotides are attracted to clay
particles, such as those that may have existed in primordial ponds. By
concentrating nucleotides in a small area, the clay particles increase the
rate of nucleotide polymerization, spontaneously forming nucleic acids.
Instead of enzymes making a reaction happen more quickly, in this case,
clay does the job.
© 2012 Nature Education All rights reserved.
Although they are not alive, vesicles have some properties in common with
cells (Figure 5). Vesicles can divide to create more vesicles, just as cell
membranes divide to create two cells. They can take in montmorillite
particles, and if the particles are carrying RNA or other molecules, the
vesicles will enclose those as well. Vesicles can have an internal
environment different from the environment outside the lipid bilayer, and they
can grow larger without diluting their contents. Some vesicles can take in
molecules or chemicals selectively and use them in metabolic reactions.

Figure 5: A laboratory-produced protocell that fights cancer.

This electronmicrograph shows a protocell developed in the laboratory for
encapsulating and delivering drugs to malignant tumors. Arrows point to
the membrane enclosing the protocell (scale bar = 25 nm).
© 2011 Nature Publishing Group Ashley, C. E. et al. The targeted
delivery of multicomponent cargos to cancer cells by nanoporous
particle-supported lipid bilayers. Nature Materials 10, 389–397 (2011)
doi:10.1038/nmat2992. Used with permission.
Imagine a vesicle that could grow, split into two vesicles, and carry RNA that
could replicate accurately and catalyze reactions. Such a vesicle would be
almost like a cell. In fact, vesicles like these could have been protocells that
later evolved into true cells (Figure 6).

Figure 6: RNA and protocell replication.

The first protocell could have formed from the internalization and
replication of nucleic acid molecules inside a phospholipid bilayer.
 © 2014 Nature Education All rights reserved. Transcript

In the same way that RNA now acts as a template to create proteins, single-
stranded RNA might have acted as a template for DNA. Double-stranded
DNA is more stable than RNA and is copied more accurately, so cells with
double-stranded DNA would likely have had an evolutionary advantage. RNA
in these cells could have adapted to serve a different function, such as
translating genes into proteins. Protocells might have engulfed other cells
that later became organelles. Mitochondria, which produce ATP using
glucose and oxygen, and chloroplasts, which produce glucose and oxygen
from light and carbon dioxide, are widely believed to have begun as different
types of bacteria engulfed by host cells, perhaps bacteria much like those
still living in hydrothermal vents.
Speaking of hydrothermal vents, one way to speed up a reaction — in
addition to enzymes or clay — is to apply heat. How much difference does
heat make? Some reactions that might have been important for developing
the molecules necessary for life on the early Earth are slow at 25°C (77°F).
But heating to 100°C (212°F) speeds them up by a factor of 10 million. Of all
possible solvents for the molecules that assembled to create life, hot water
might be the very best. Boiling water is hot enough to speed biochemical
reactions by an enormous rate, but not so hot that it causes most complex
molecules to fall apart. This effect of heat is yet another reason to think life
might have evolved in volcano vents on the ocean floor, with a reducing
environment, inorganic nutrients from lava and ash, water, and a large
amount of heat.

Processes that influence the origin of species are not the same as those
that influence the origin of life.
Some people think that evolutionary processes such as natural selection,
which is backed by overwhelming evidence and universally accepted as a
cornerstone of biology, equally explains the origin of life on Earth. It doesn't.
Evolution is a characteristic of life, once it exists, but does not explain how
life formed in the first place. As soon as protocells became self-replicating,
evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift would
have acted. For example, natural selection would have favored cells that
replicated more effectively than other cells, cells that could use the available
energy sources more efficiently, and cells that could repair themselves.
Evolutionary processes such as natural selection underlie how protocells
evolved into cells, how single-celled organisms evolved into multicellular
organisms, and how organisms diversified into the multitude of species that
we see across the Earth's ecosystems today. It does not, however, explain
how the ability to self-replicate developed in the first place. Evolutionary
theory deals with the origin of species but not with the origin of life.
Test Yourself

Why doesn't the theory of natural selection apply to the origin of life?

Submit

How did life begin? Is there life on other planets? Despite long-standing
human curiosity about these questions, research on the origin of life has
yielded only a set of hypotheses, not a single accepted theory. Most
scientists agree that organic molecules must have appeared first, then
macromolecules, and then self-replicating protocells. Maybe life began with
meteorites, or maybe it began in hydrothermal vents, or maybe both. Maybe
RNA self-assembly was the first step toward replication, perhaps PNA was
the first genetic material, or maybe metabolic processes developed first,
followed by guided assembly of macromolecules. Chemists, geologists,
astronomers, and biologists continue to explore many different ways to test
these hypotheses.

IN THIS MODULE

From Organic Molecules to

Self-Replicating Protocells
How Did Macromolecules Assemble
from Organic Molecules?
Summary
Test Your Knowledge

WHY DOES THIS TOPIC MATTER?

The Climate Connection

How is life on Earth reacting to
climate change?

A Sea of Microbes Drives Global

Change
Do floating microbes in the ocean’s
surface waters play an outsize role in global
climate?

SCIENCE ON THE WEB

Stanley Miller Explains

Do your own Miller-Urey experiment

Up Close With Hydrothermal Vents

Browse through underwater images
captured by exploring scientists

page 377 of 989 2 pages left in this module

Principles of Biology contents

73 Origin of Life

Summary
OBJECTIVEExplain how organic molecules self-assemble into
macromolecules.
The origin of the first organic molecules is currently being investigated.
These molecules self-assemble in conditions that are likely similar to the
environment of primitive Earth. Hydrothermal vent conditions are conducive
to the formation of organic molecules. Organic molecules similar to those
found on Earth are also found on asteroids. Once smaller organic molecules
formed, they might be able to aggregate into larger macromolecules. RNA
might self-assemble and will form relatively long chains in the presence of
clay. This process occurs faster at high temperatures.

Describe how macromolecules could replicate using

OBJECTIVE

templates.
Some macromolecules, such as RNA, can self-replicate as well as catalyze
other reactions. Both RNA and PNA can produce nucleotide sequences that
are complementary to a strand of nucleic acid without the addition of
enzymes.
OBJECTIVEDiscuss hypotheses about the formation of self-replicating
protocells.
Phospholipids will self-assemble into bilayers when placed in an aqueous
solution. These vesicles can divide, take in macromolecules, and maintain an
internal environment that differs from their external environment. If these
vesicles contain RNA, these protocells might replicate and catalyze reactions
within their membrane.

Key Terms
protocell
A theoretical vesicle that could grow, split into two identical vesicles, and carry
RNA that could replicate and catalyze reactions.

IN THIS MODULE

From Organic Molecules to

Self-Replicating Protocells
How Did Macromolecules Assemble from
Organic Molecules?
Summary
Test Your Knowledge

WHY DOES THIS TOPIC MATTER?

The Climate Connection

How is life on Earth reacting to
climate change?

A Sea of Microbes Drives Global

Change
Do floating microbes in the ocean’s
surface waters play an outsize role in global
climate?

SCIENCE ON THE WEB

Stanley Miller Explains

Do your own Miller-Urey experiment

Up Close With Hydrothermal Vents

Browse through underwater images
captured by exploring scientists
page 378 of 989 1 pages left in this module
Principles of Biology contents

73 Origin of Life

Test Your Knowledge

1. When the Murchison meteorite that landed in Australia was found to contain amino
acids, how could scientists tell they had arrived with the meteorite rather than
having contaminated it after it landed?

The ratio of hydrogen to deuterium didn't match the ratio found on Earth.
The meteor could not have accumulated amino acids on Earth because it landed
in the ocean.
The meteor landed in a barren field where it couldn't have picked up any organic
molecules.
They were trapped under a crust and only seeped out when the ice under the crust
melted.
About half of the amino acids were D isomers and half were L isomers, whereas
nearly all organic molecules on Earth are in the L configuration.

2. Approximately when do scientists believe life originated on Earth?

150 million years ago

4.2 billion years ago
6,000 years ago
90,000 years ago
2.2 billion years ago

3. What did the Urey-Miller experiment show that is still applicable today?

Primitive bacteria can live and reproduce using methane and hydrogen sulfide as
energy sources.
RNA molecules will spontaneously self-assemble into polymers on a hot clay or
rock surface.
Amino acids and other complex organic molecules will spontaneously form in a
reducing environment.
Complex organic molecules will spontaneously form in an atmosphere like that of
early Earth.
Heating water to its boiling point speeds up reactions tremendously, sometimes by
10 million-fold.

4. Which piece of evidence supports the idea that life originated in or near submarine
hydrothermal vents?

Hydrothermal vents would have been present nearly as soon as Earth was
created, about 2 billion years ago.
On land, volcanic ash creates an environment inhospitable to living organisms.
Archaebacteria fix carbon dioxide and produce ATP using the same pathway
mitochondria use.
Organisms that live near hydrothermal vents have specific adaptations to
withstand these harsh environments.
Some of the microorganisms that appear to have evolved earliest still live in
hydrothermal vents.

5. What is the prevailing theory for how macromolecules assembled in the absence of
enzymes?

DNA catalyzed the formation of macromolecules.

Simple reactions can occur quickly under any circumstances.
Heat-catalyzed reactions led to the assembly of macromolecules.
 The reactions occurred slowly.
Macromolecules catalyzed the formation of more macromolecules.

6. How have researchers encouraged longer RNA polymers to self-assemble?

by cooling the solution to near freezing

by adding the ribose sugars to the reaction last
by dissolving them in water
by adding microscopic particles of clay
by changing the backbone structure

7. Which of the following statements best represents the most likely evolution of
RNA?

Its function changed over time.

Its function has remained the same since the origins of life.
It evolved after DNA.
It evolved after protocells.
Its biochemical structure has become completely different since it first originated.

8. Natural selection ___.

did not play a role in the evolution of early life

explains the formation of macromolecules
determined the elements available for the evolution of life
did not play a role in the origins of life
eliminated meteorite-carrying organisms from Earth

Submit

IN THIS MODULE

From Organic Molecules to

Self-Replicating Protocells
How Did Macromolecules Assemble from
Organic Molecules?
Summary
Test Your Knowledge

WHY DOES THIS TOPIC MATTER?

The Climate Connection

How is life on Earth reacting to
climate change?

A Sea of Microbes Drives Global

Change
Do floating microbes in the ocean’s
surface waters play an outsize role in global
climate?

SCIENCE ON THE WEB

Stanley Miller Explains

Do your own Miller-Urey experiment

Up Close With Hydrothermal Vents

Browse through underwater images
captured by exploring scientists

page 379 of 989