Episode 30: The origin of life

Don’t worry, it’s nothing important this week - only the origin of all life on planet Earth. No biggie. Sure, life evolved by natural selection, but to get evolution going, you need to have life in the first place. So where did it come from?

Scientists have theories about “abiogenesis” - the moment around 3.5 billion years ago when, having never existed before, biology began. In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart look into the theories, and some of the recent studies where scientists have tried to recreate the conditions that might’ve sparked self-replicating molecules. Are we any nearer to answering one of the biggest questions of all?

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress, the online magazine where you can find the best writing on science, technology, and human progress. The latest issue of Works in Progress includes amazing articles on the history of serfdom in Russia, what it’s like to be deliberately infected with the zika virus, and how we can create safe markets for organ donation. You can read all that and much more, all for free, at this link.

Show notes

* Darwin’s 1871 “warm little pond” letter

* JBS Haldane writing about the origin of life in 1929

* The famous Miller-Urey experiment from 1953

* Nick Lane and Joana Xavier’s 2024 commentary article in Nature, describing the RNA world hypothesis vs. the hydrothermal vents hypothesis, and the open science problems in origin-of-life research

* 2015 review on the RNA world hypothesis

* 2008 review of the deep-sea vents hypothesis

* 2023 PNAS paper with a mathematical model of the co-evolution of replicators and reproducers

* 2024 study finding that long-chain fatty acids can be produced in conditions resembling deep-sea hydrothermal vents

Credits and acknowledgements

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions. We thank Prof. Nick Lane for talking us through the theories of abiogenesis (but he’s not responsible for any mistakes in the show).