Little warm pool

Extraterrestrial origins of life Terrestrial origins of life Life was delivered to the Earth (or any planet) by meteorites of cometary material, leading to the idea of panspermia The molecules of life were built on Earth, perhaps in the primordial soup or little warm pool... 

Table 8.3. Notice how the polar solvent water supports significantly more dissolved gas than the non-polar solvent. However, gases dissolved in solutions go on to produce other compounds, most importantly protons, that determine the ocean pH or the pH of Darwin s little warm pool .

Importantly, salt-induced peptide formation could provide an abiotic route for the formation of peptides directly from amino acids in concentrated NaCl solutions containing copper ions. Montmorillonite and similar minerals apparently promote the condensation reaction that could have taken place in evaporating tidal pools -Darwin s warm little ponds - where the required salty brine solutions were easily available. Obviously, this is a likely and hence a credible prebiotic scenario. There might a pearl hidden beneath muddy waters. Besides, it is fascinating to assume that the primitive enolase enzyme known to be a highly conserved ancient enzyme could have evolved in an RNA-peptide world. Enolase catalyzes the for enantio-selective carbon-carbon bond addition of water to phosphoenol pyruvate to yield D-2-phospho-glycerate. 

A solution of 4.0 g of 1-(3,4-ethylenedioxyphenyl)-2-nitropropene was made in 30 mL warm acetic acid. This was added to a suspension of 16 g elemental electrolytic iron in 75 mL acetic acid. The mixture was heated on the steam bath, and an exothermic reaction set in at about 70 °C. Heating was continued and the reaction allowed to proceed until the mass was a thick gray color and a dirty scum had been formed on the surface. After about 2 h, the entire mix was poured into 2 L H20 and filtered free of a little residual unreacted iron which was washed with CH2CI2. The filtrate and washes were extracted with 3x100 mL CH2CI2 and the pooled organic... 

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