Thioester synthesis through geoelectrochemical CO fixation on Ni sulfides.

A prevailing scenario of the origin of life postulates thioesters as key intermediates in protometabolism, but there is no experimental support for the prebiotic CO fixation routes to thioesters. Here we demonstrate that, under a simulated geoelectrochemical condition in primordial ocean hydrothermal systems (-0.6 to -1.

Metals likely promoted protometabolism in early ocean alkaline hydrothermal systems.

One of the most plausible scenarios of the origin of life assumes the preceding prebiotic autotrophic metabolism in sulfide-rich hydrothermal vent environments. However, geochemical mechanisms to harness the reductive power provided by hydrothermal systems remain to be elucidated. Here, we show that, under a geoelectrochemical condition realizable in the early ocean hydrothermal systems, several metal sulfides (FeS, AgS, CuS, and PbS) undergo hour- to day-scale conversion to the corresponding metals at ≤-0.

Geoelectrochemical CO production: Implications for the autotrophic origin of life.

Wächtershäuser's proposal of the autotrophic origin of life theory and subsequent laboratory demonstrations of relevant organic reactions have opened a new gate for the exploration of the origin of life. However, this scenario remains controversial because, at present, it requires a high pressure of CO as a source of carbon and reducing energy, although CO must have been a trace C species on the Hadean Earth. We show that, simulating a geoelectrochemical environment in deep-sea hydrothermal fields, CO production with up to ~40% Faraday efficiency was attainable on CdS in CO-saturated NaCl solution at ≤-1 V (versus the standard hydrogen electrode).

A Principled Approach to the Origin Problem.

The key issue of the origin of life is the origin of a complex system rather than the abiotic formation of various organic substances, small and large. To consider this "origin problem" it is advantageous to abstract some principles from biology and statistical physics to guide our approach. Referring to these principles, we aim to construct a chemical system called "protometabolism," which would be a precursor of metabolism.

NeatMap--non-clustering heat map alternatives in R.

Background: The clustered heat map is the most popular means of visualizing genomic data. It compactly displays a large amount of data in an intuitive format that facilitates the detection of hidden structures and relations in the data. However, it is hampered by its use of cluster analysis which does not always respect the intrinsic relations in the data, often requiring non-standardized reordering of rows/columns to be performed post-clustering.