Researchers studying how life arose from non-living matter have struggled to create self-replicating molecules Richard Green/Alamy
The very first life to have existed on Earth may have begun when chemicals started to cooperate.
A new study suggests that life is most likely to have formed when at least two kinds of carbon-based chemicals interacted.
Sijbren Otto at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and his colleagues have found that mixtures of simple carbon-based chemicals can spontaneously form elaborate molecules, which can then copy themselves. Such self-replication is a hallmark of life, because it allows organisms to reproduce.
Researchers who…
