Where Do the Building Blocks of Life Come From? New Route for Producing Hydrogen Cyanide on Early Earth Discovered

Explanation

A team including researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo has found a new chemical reaction pathway by which hydrogen cyanide (HCN) could be produced on the early Earth, before life existed. Hydrogen cyanide is known as a deadly poison, but it is actually an important molecule that serves as the source of amino acids and nucleic acids (the components of DNA and RNA), and is considered a starting point for producing the "building blocks of life." How enough HCN could have been produced on the early Earth had long been a major mystery.

This discovery shows a realistic pathway by which HCN could arise from inorganic (non-biological) substances in an environment like that of the early Earth. This brings us one step closer to the major question of "how life arose from non-living matter (chemical evolution)," while also providing a clue for the search for life on exoplanets with similar environments. The "bonding of atoms" and "chemical reactions" taught in chemistry class connect directly to the grand theme of the origin of life.