<story><title>Mimicking an impact on Earth’s early atmosphere yields all 4 RNA bases</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/mimicking-an-impact-on-earths-early-atmosphere-yields-all-4-rna-bases/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mtdewcmu</author><text>The hypothesis that goes something like&lt;p&gt;RNA bases -&amp;gt; RNA -&amp;gt; proteins -&amp;gt; life&lt;p&gt;seems to sidestep the issue of metabolism, i.e. what did the first organism eat? What was its energy source?&lt;p&gt;When I picture life arising from nothing, the most plausible scenario seems to involve increasingly intricate chemical reactions that initially do absolutely nothing other than create longer and longer staircases for energy to step through through before dissipating and becoming useless. In other words, you start with metabolism first, and then get structure later.&lt;p&gt;It seems plausible that the earliest proto-metabolisms didn&amp;#x27;t use RNA or resemble modern life in any way. There might have been a succession of proto-metabolisms before getting to anything we would recognize as life. They would likely not have left any fossil record.&lt;p&gt;Does this make any sense to anybody?</text></comment>
<story><title>Mimicking an impact on Earth’s early atmosphere yields all 4 RNA bases</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/mimicking-an-impact-on-earths-early-atmosphere-yields-all-4-rna-bases/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Blinks-</author><text>When I was in middle school I read a new book about cell structure I found in the library, my favorite chapter was always about the so called primordial soup of lipids and simple organic compounds that could have setup the chemical basis for polymers to form and in turn create the building blocks for RNA. It was one of the main things that gave me an interest in science and engineering, up until that point people had always given me a &amp;quot;god did it&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;we still have no theories on that son&amp;quot;. This brings me back to the good ol&amp;#x27; days of trying to explain how RNA could come about, as a 12 year old, to middle aged religious teachers who shot me down every time. As a kid this made me turn to outside sources for knowledge, and in retrospect that was actually a good thing.</text></comment>