Hell’s Gate in New Zealand is being used as an open-air laboratory Kieran Stone/Getty
Nearly 4 billion years after life first arose on Earth, researchers have been trying to recreate the first steps towards life in steamy, bubbling pools in New Zealand.
One of the big questions in understanding the origins of life is how smaller molecules like nucleotides, fatty acids, or amino acids first formed long, polymer chains like RNA, lipids, and proteins. Life as we know it uses RNA and DNA as its genetic material, while proteins look after and catalyse these and other processes, all encapsulated within…
