ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF LIFE

ORIGIN OF LIFE
The origin of life on Earth is a highly curious thing and is one of the great mysteries in the
Universe. To determine the origin of life, scientists are investigating the problem in several different
ways. Some scientists are studying life on our own planet. Others are seeking out life or fossil life on
other planets or moons in our solar system. Still others are trying to detect life in other solar systems,
either by measuring life's effects on the atmospheres of distant planets or by measuring artificial
radiation like radio signals that may be produced by advanced life.
Chemical traces of life have also been detected in slightly older rocks. In Greenland, a series
of ancient metamorphosed sediments have been found. Analyses indicate the sediments were
deposited about 3.8 billion years ago. They also revealed carbon isotope signatures that appear to
have been produced by organisms that lived when the sediments were deposited.

3.5 billion year old lava and sedimentary chert (right)

Thus far, the most fruitful approach has been to examine life on our own planet. However,
even by that, it is difficult to determine life's origins because it began at least 3.5 billion years ago.
We know that life began at least 3.5 billion years ago, because that is the age of the oldest rocks with
fossil evidence of life on earth. These rocks are rare because subsequent geologic processes have
reshaped the surface of our planet, often destroying older rocks while making new ones. Nonetheless,
3.5 billion year old rocks with fossils can be found in Africa and Australia. They are usually a mix of
solidified lava and sedimentary cherts (a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline
or cryptocrystalline silica). The fossils occur in sedimentary cherts.
The oldest known fossils are around 3.5 billion years old. But the fossil record may stretch
back still further. For instance, in 2016 researchers found what appear to be fossilised microbes dating
back 3.7 billion years? The Earth itself is not much older, having formed 4.5 billion years ago. If we
assume that life formed on Earth (which seems reasonable, given that we have not yet found it
anywhere else) then it must have done so in the billion years between Earth coming into being and the
preservation of the oldest known fossils.
Panspermia and the origin of life on Earth
The Panspermia (Greek word, meaning seeds everywhere) hypothesis states that the "seeds"
of life exist all over the Universe and can be propagated through space from one location to another.
Some believe that life on Earth may have originated through these "seeds".
 Mechanisms for panspermia include the deflection of interstellar dust by solar radiation
pressure and extremophile microorganisms travelling through space within an asteroid, meteorite or
comet.
Three popular variations of the panspermia hypothesis are:
 Lithopanspermia (interstellar panspermia) - impact-expelled rocks from a planet's surface
serve as transfer vehicles for spreading biological material from one solar system to another.
 Ballistic panspermia (interplanetary panspermia) - impact-expelled rocks from a planet's
surface serve as transfer vehicles for spreading biological material from one planet to another
within the same solar system.
 Directed panspermia - the intentional spreading of the seeds of life to other planets by an
advanced extraterrestrial civilization, or the intentional spreading of the seeds of life from
Earth to other planets by humans.
Panspermia does not provide an explanation for evolution or attempt pinpoint the origin of life in
the Universe, but it does attempt to solve the mysteries of the origin of life on Earth and the transfer of
life throughout the Universe.
The first known mention of the concept of panspermia was in the writings of the Greek
philosopher Anaxagoras (500 BC – 428 BC). All things have existed from the beginning. But
originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and
inextricably combined. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused and indistinguishable form.
There were the seeds (spermata) or miniatures of everything in the primitive mixture; but these parts,
of like nature with their wholes, had to be eliminated from the complex mass before they could
receive a definite name and character.
In 1743 the theory of panspermia appeared in the writings of French natural historian Benoît de
Maillet, who believed that that life on Earth was "seeded" by germs from space falling into the
oceans, rather than life arising through abiogenesis.
The panspermia theory was rekindled in the 19th century by the scientists Jöns Jacob
Berzelius, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson) and Hermann von Helmholtz.

Recent support for Panspermia

A meteorite blasted off from the surface Mars about 15 million years ago was found in
Antarctica in 1984 by a team of scientists on an annual United States government mission to search
for meteors. The meteor was named Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001). In 1996, ALH84001 was shown
to contain structures that may be the remains of terrestrial nanobacteria. Several tests for organic
material have been performed on ALH84001 and amino acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAH) have been found. However, most experts now agree that these are not a definite indication of
life, but may have instead been formed abiotically from organic molecules or are due to
contamination from contact with Antarctic ice. The announcement of the discovery of evidence of life
on ALH84001 sparked a surge in support for the theory of panspermia.

Stages of early life on Earth

It is agreed by scientists that there are four main stages to how life came from non-living things:
 Formation of small organic molecules - such as amino acids that make proteins and
nucleotides that make DNA. While these organic molecules are found in living things, they
aren't actually living things themselves, but are really just specific combinations of elements.
 Joining together of these small organic molecules to form larger molecules. The small
molecules are called monomers, when they join together; they create polymers that have
many repeating units.
  The polymers that were formed from the monomers grouped together to form
protobionts (meaning early form of life). They are believed to be basically small droplets
with membranes that are able to maintain a stable internal environment. They are similar to
the cells with which we are familiar in that they can reproduce, metabolize, and even respond
to their environments. Many experiments have shown that these pre-cell structures can
spontaneously form.
 The simple protobionts evolved to pass on genetic information. Protobionts are capable of
replicating - that is, they can make new protobionts. However, cells, which are the basic unit
of life, are unique in that they can reproduce and pass on genetic information from one
generation to the next, metabolize matter and energy, and can evolve. These simple cells were
created from complex molecules that were created from simple molecules, then continued to
evolve into a wide variety of life forms.

The Oparin hypothesis

While we don't have a complete record of what actually
happened when life originated from non-living chemicals, as
hypothesized above, we have some clues based on evidences and
experimentation. The first widely accepted idea was proposed by a
Russian chemist A I Oparin in the 1920s. In 1924, Oparin published
his book ‘The origin of life’ in which he set out a vision for the birth
of life. Based on Oparin's hypothesis, early life on Earth formed through a series of reactions that
made simple compounds gradually more complex.
Oparin imagined what Earth was like when it was newly formed. The surface was
exceedingly hot, as rocks from space plunged down onto it and impacted. It was a mess of semi-
molten rocks, containing a huge range of chemicals – including many based on carbon. This solution
containing many essential elements and compounds is commonly referred to as a primordial soup.
Eventually the Earth cooled enough for water vapour to condense into liquid water, and the
first rain fell. Before long Earth had oceans, which were hot and rich in carbon-based chemicals. Now
two things could happen.
 First, the various chemicals could react with each other to form lots of new compounds, some
of which would be more complex. Oparin supposed that the molecules central to life, like
sugars and amino acids, could all have formed in Earth's waters.
 Second, some of the chemicals began to form microscopic structures. Many organic
chemicals do not dissolve in water: for example, oil forms a layer on top of water. But when
some of these chemicals contact water they form spherical globules called "coacervates",
which can be up to 0.01cm (0.004 inches) across.
When observed under a microscope, the coacervates behaved like living cells. They grow and
change shape, and sometimes divide into two. They can also take in chemicals from the surrounding
water, so life-like chemicals can become concentrated inside them. Oparin proposed that coacervates
were the ancestors of modern cells.

Haldane’s hypothesis
Haldane's ideas about the origin of life were very similar to Oparin's.
Haldane proposed that the primordial sea served as a vast chemical
laboratory powered by solar energy. The atmosphere was oxygen free, and
the combination of CO2, NH3 and UV radiation gave rise to a host of organic
compounds. The sea became a 'hot dilute soup' containing large populations
of organic monomers and polymers. Haldane envisaged that groups of monomers and polymers
acquired lipid membranes, and that further developments eventually led to the first living cells.
Haldane coined the term 'prebiotic soup', and this became a powerful symbol of the Oparin-Haldane
view of the origin of life.
The idea that life formed in a primordial soup of organic chemicals became known as the
Oparin-Haldane hypothesis. It was neat and compelling; the only problem was the lack of
experimental evidence to back it up.

The Miller-Urey experiment

While Oparin-Haldane
hypothesis was widely accepted,
they didn't actually test the idea.
This came later in the 1950s when
two men, Stanley Miller and Harold
Urey, created a crude device to test
the idea of a reducing atmosphere
and nutrient-rich oceans creating
life.
The Miller-Urey experiment
involved creating a self-contained atmosphere. Set up an experimental atmosphere meant to mimic the
conditions of the primitive Earth. Based on evidence and speculation, they decided to include
hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH4), and water vapor (H2O) for the atmosphere. They
didn't include pure oxygen as it is agreed that early Earth didn't have much oxygen. They included
hydrogen as it is the simplest element. Methane contained the life-essential element carbon and is a
common product of things like volcanic eruptions, which were probably common on early Earth. The
ammonia is also a common product of volcanic eruptions and contains nitrogen, which is essential for
proteins and DNA. The water vapor provided the element oxygen, which we require for life. An
electric spark was passed through the mixture to simulate lightening. This provided a source for
covalent bond formation. The atmosphere was cooled and the gases condense into a watery solution,
meant to mimic the primitive oceans.
At the end of one week, as much as 10-15 % of the carbon was in the form of organic
compounds. About 2 % of the carbon had formed over 20 amino acids, including 13 of the 20 that are
used to make proteins in living cells.
Scientists now believe that the atmosphere of the early Earth was different from that used by
Miller and Urey, but their work was a landmark experiment. It showed that amino acids, which are
essential to life, could arise from inorganic precursors. But then it became clear that life was more
complicated than anyone had thought. Living cells are not just bags of chemicals: they are intricate
little machines. Making one such cell from scratch began to look like a much bigger challenge than
scientists had anticipated.
Origin of cells and the first organisms
The next step in evolution was the formation of macromolecules. The monomeric building
blocks of macromolecules have been demonstrated to polymerize spontaneously under plausible
prebiotic conditions. Heating dry mixtures of amino acids, for example, results in their polymerization
to form polypeptides. But the critical characteristic of the macromolecule from which life evolved
must have been the ability to replicate itself. Only a macromolecule capable of directing the synthesis
of new copies of itself would have been capable of reproduction and further evolution.
Of the two major classes of informational macromolecules in present-day cells (nucleic acids
and proteins), only the nucleic acids are capable of directing their own self-replication. In the early
1980s it was discovered that RNA is capable of catalyzing a number of chemical reactions, including
the polymerization of nucleotides. RNA is thus uniquely able both to serve as a template for and to
catalyze its own replication. Consequently, RNA is generally believed to have been the initial genetic
system, and an early stage of chemical evolution is thought to have been based on self-replicating
RNA molecules - a period of evolution known as the RNA world. Ordered interactions between RNA
and amino acids then evolved into the present-day genetic code, and DNA eventually replaced RNA
as the genetic material.
The first cell is presumed to have arisen by the enclosure of self-replicating RNA in a
membrane composed of phospholipids. Being amphipathic, phospholipids spontaneously aggregate
into a bilayer when placed in water. Such a phospholipid bilayer forms a stable barrier between two
aqueous compartments - for example, separating the interior of the cell from its external environment.
The enclosure of self-replicating RNA and associated molecules in a phospholipid membrane would
thus have maintained them as a unit, capable of self-reproduction and further evolution. RNA-directed
protein synthesis may already have evolved by this time, in which case the first cell would have
consisted of self-replicating RNA and its encoded proteins.
The evolution of metabolism
Because cells originated in a sea of organic molecules, they were able to obtain food and
energy directly from their environment. Cells needed to evolve their own mechanisms for generating
energy and synthesizing the molecules necessary for their replication. The generation and controlled
utilization of metabolic energy is central to all cell activities. All cells use ATP as their source of
metabolic energy to drive the synthesis of cell constituents and carry out other energy-requiring
activities, such as movement (e.g., muscle contraction). The mechanisms used by cells for the
generation of ATP are thought to have evolved in three stages, corresponding to the evolution
of glycolysis, photosynthesis, and oxidative metabolism. The development of these metabolic
pathways changed Earth's atmosphere, thereby altering the course of further evolution.
In the initially anaerobic atmosphere of Earth, the first energy-generating reactions
presumably involved the breakdown of organic molecules in the absence of oxygen. These reactions
are likely to have been a form of present-day glycolysis - the anaerobic breakdown of glucose to lactic
acid, with the net energy gain of two molecules of ATP. In addition to using ATP as their source of
intracellular chemical energy, all present-day cells carry out glycolysis, consistent with the notion that
these reactions arose very early in evolution. Glycolysis provided a mechanism by which the energy
in preformed organic molecules (e.g., glucose) could be converted to ATP, which could then be used
as a source of energy to drive other metabolic reactions.
The development of photosynthesis is generally thought to have been the next major
evolutionary step, which allowed the cell to harness energy from sunlight and provided independence
from the utilization of preformed organic molecules. The first photosynthetic bacteria, which evolved
more than 3 billion years ago, probably utilized H2S to convert CO2 to organic molecules—a pathway
of photosynthesis still used by some bacteria. The use of H2O as a donor of electrons and hydrogen
for the conversion of CO2 to organic compounds evolved later and had the important consequence of
changing Earth's atmosphere. The use of H2O in photosynthetic reactions produces the by-product
free O2; this mechanism is thought to have been responsible for making O2 abundant in Earth's
atmosphere.
The release of O2 as a consequence of photosynthesis changed the environment in which cells
evolved and is commonly thought to have led to the development of oxidative metabolism.
Alternatively, oxidative metabolism may have evolved before photosynthesis, with the increase in
atmospheric O2 then providing a strong selective advantage for organisms capable of using O2 in
energy-producing reactions. In either case, O2 is a highly reactive molecule, and oxidative
metabolism, utilizing this reactivity, has provided a mechanism for generating energy from organic
molecules that is much more efficient than anaerobic glycolysis. For example, the complete oxidative
breakdown of glucose to CO2 and H2O yields energy equivalent to that of 36 to 38 molecules of ATP,
in contrast to the 2 ATP molecules formed by anaerobic glycolysis. With few exceptions, present-day
cells use oxidative reactions as their principal source of energy.
Present-day procaryotes
Present-day prokaryotes, which include all the various types of bacteria, are divided into two
groups - the archaebacteria and the eubacteria - which diverged early in evolution.
Some archaebacteria live in extreme environments, which are unusual today but may have been
prevalent in primitive Earth. For example, thermoacidophiles live in hot sulfur springs with
temperatures as high as 80°C and pH values as low as 2. The eubacteria include the common forms of
present-day bacteria. The largest and most complex prokaryotes are the cyanobacteria, bacteria in
which photosynthesis evolved.
Eukaryotic cells
Eukaryotic cells are much more complex and contain a nucleus, a variety of cytoplasmic
organelles, and a cytoskeleton.