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You probably know Nick Lane for his books, such as the rather famous (among some slightly nerdy people, I read it twice!!) "The Vital Question." An older, but still interesting, book by Lane is "Oxygen, the Molecule that made the World."
Nick Lane was recently interviewed on "Nautilus" about his new book, "Transformer: the Deep
Chemistry of Life." It is about the Krebs cycle, the engine that powers
all the holobionts on this planet. Here, Lane describes how we may be finally cracking the mystery of the origins of life: an epochal discovery. You probably remember how, in the 1950s,
it was discovered that the so-called "primordial soup" could generate aminoacids when exposed to ultraviolet rays or electrical discharges.
Then, it became fashionable to think that life could have developed on
Earth as the result of the assembling of aminoacids to form DNA or RNA
molecules. It also became fashionable to think in terms of the "RNA
world" that may have preceded the current molecular structure of cells.
Alas, it didn't work. Aminoacids stubbornly refused to assemble
themselves into anything more than short-chain peptides, molecules akin to proteins, but much simpler and smaller. This field was
gradually abandoned for lack of success in obtaining any useful results about the origin of life. . But now, Lane is reconsidering the idea with a new
take: trying to see if it is possible to self-assemble the Krebs cycle or at least something that resembles the Krebs cycle. (Image from Wikipedia)
Fascinating story. I am going to order Lane's new book, even though I don't guarantee that I am nerdy enough to read it twice (maybe not even once), but I'll try.
And, as usual, onward, fellow holobionts!!
