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Could Life Originate between Mica Sheets?: Mechanochemical Biomolecular Synthesis and the Origins of Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Helen Greenwood Hansma
Helen Greenwood Hansma*
Affiliation:
[email protected], UCSB, Physics, 6334 Broida, Santa Barbara, 93106, United States, 805 7292119
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Abstract

The materials properties of mica have surprising similarities to those of living systems. The mica hypothesis is that life could have originated between mica sheets, which provide stable compartments, mechanical energy for bond formation, and the isolation needed for Darwinian evolution. Mechanical energy is produced by the movement of mica sheets, in response to forces such as ocean currents or temperature changes. The energy of a carbon-carbon bond at room temperature is comparable to a mechanical force of 6 nanoNewtons (nN) moving a distance of 100 picometers. Mica's movements may have facilitated mechanochemistry, resulting in the synthesis of prebiotic organic molecules. Furthermore, mica's movements may have facilitated the earliest cell divisions, at a later stage of life's origins. Mica's movements, pressing on lipid vesicles containing proto-cellular macromolecules, might have facilitated the blebbing off of ‘daughter’ protocells. This blebbing-off process has been observed recently in wall-less L-form bacteria and is proposed to be a remnant of the earliest cell divisions (Leaver, et al. Nature457, 849 (2009).

Keywords

biological synthesis (chemical reaction)biological synthesis (assembly)nanoscale
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 1185: Symposium II – Probing Mechanics at Nanoscale Dimensions , 2009 , 1185-II03-15
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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