How did life begin on Earth? Study reveals answers
Technology
A 2025 study from University College London shows that, about four billion years ago, amino acids and RNA might have teamed up naturally in Earth's freshwater lakes.
Researchers found that a sulfur compound called pantetheine could help amino acids stick to RNA, forming a key molecule (aminoacyl-thiol) in plain water—a primitive version of the process that, in modern cells, is carried out by ribosomes.
Discovery helps explain how life could have started
This discovery helps explain how life could have started making proteins before cells or ribosomes even existed.
There are limits—it probably only happened in lakes, not oceans, and the protein chains formed were random, not ordered.
Still, it's a big step toward understanding how life got its start on our planet.