The prebiotic emergence of protocells is an important part of chemical origin of life. This study shows that cyclic-phospholipids formed from fatty acids and glycerol could have played a role by generating a heterogeneous library of vesicles with diverse morphologies and tolerance to a range of metal ions, temperature, and pH.

https://www.cell.com/chem/abstract/S2451-9294(24)00069-X

    • @[email protected]
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      1110 months ago

      This sounds just like what we covered in my freshman biology class 9 years ago. Phosphoipid-lined vesicles providing space for self replicating nucleic acids to go bonkers.

      Am i missing something from this specific paper?

      • astrsk
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        110 months ago

        I think the difference is they actually made the protocells for real? Not sure.

    • @surewhynotlem
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      610 months ago

      You’d have two dollars. But it’s weird it happened twice, right?

  • @AbouBenAdhem
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    310 months ago

    So is the theory that life started as two separate self-perpetuating processes (membranes and nucleic acids) that eventually joined together?