The Origin of Life on a Planetary Scale

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The idea that in the lab, with our paltry facilities, we would be capable of producing cells is a pretty hubristic pursuit. But i think that what we can do is understand and demonstrate the believability of the steps that it's possible that a planet gives rise to life in this way. And i think that's something to aspire to. Yes, it sounds like inappropriately humble goal in what is, after a pretty hubrisic a pursuit over over a halllane.

The origin of life here on Earth was an important and fascinating event, but it was also a long time ago and hasn’t left many pieces of direct evidence concerning what actually happened. One set of clues we have comes from processes in current living organisms, especially those processes that seem extremely common. The Krebs cycle, the sequence of reactions that functions as a pathway for energy distribution in aerobic organisms, is such an example. I talk with biochemist about the importance of the Krebs cycle to contemporary biology, as well as its possible significance in understanding the origin of life.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Nick Lane received his PhD from the Royal Free Hospital Medical School. He is currently a professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London. He was a founding member of the UCL Consortium for Mitochondrial Research, and is Co-Director of the UCL Centre for Life’s Origin and Evolution. He was awarded the 2009 UCL Provost’s Venture Research Prize, the 2011 BMC Research Award for Genetics, Genomics, Bioinformatics and Evolution, the 2015 Biochemical Society Award, and the 2016 Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture. His new book is Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.