London, Nov. 16: Two US scientists claim that the appearance of life on Earth was inevitable, for it was a result of the available energy built up by geological processes on the planet.
Biologist Harold Morowitz of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and physicist Eric Smith of New Mexico's Santa Fe Institute, say that it was the geological environment that "forced life into existence".
Their view implies that not only did life have to emerge on Earth, but also that the same would happen on any similar planet, reports Nature magazine.
Although Morowitz and Smith do not have the theoretical tools to clinch their arguments, or to show what form this "inevitable life" must take, they claim that it probably used the same chemical processes that drives metabolism in humans, but in reverse.
The scientist duo explains that in metabolism, a series of biochemical reactions called the citric-acid cycle breaks down organic compounds from food into carbon dioxide. They say that the energy reservoirs of the young Earth could have driven a citric-acid cycle in reverse, spawning the building blocks of life while relaxing the 'energy pressure' of the environment.
Morowitz and Smith say that eventually those processes would have become encapsulated into cells, making the energy flows more efficient.
The idea is "instructive and inspiring", says Michael Russell, a specialist in the origin of life at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, agreeing that life is "a chemical system that drains and dissipates chemical energy".
Morowitz and Smith believe that despite several major extinction throughout geological time, life itself was never in danger of disappearing because an Earth with life is always more stable than one without.
The researchers call this process a "collapse to life", which in their view is as inevitable as the appearance of snowflakes in cold, moist air.
Bureau Report
