JERUSALEM, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli-U.S. joint research has found how complex chemical mixtures change under shifting environmental conditions, providing insights into the prebiotic processes that may have led to the emergence of life, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said Wednesday.
The university said the findings, published in Nature Chemistry, suggest that environmental factors played a key role in shaping the molecular complexity needed for life to emerge.
The research team simulated early Earth conditions by exposing mixtures of organic molecules to repeated wet-dry cycles, and observed continuous transformation, selective organization, and synchronized molecular behavior, indicating that chemical systems can self-organize and evolve in structured ways.
The findings challenge the idea that early chemical evolution was chaotic and suggest that natural fluctuations help guide the formation of increasingly complex molecules, eventually leading to life's building blocks.
Israeli researchers said that beyond its relevance to origins-of-life research, the findings may have broader applications in synthetic biology and nanotechnology.
The researchers propose that controlled chemical evolution could be harnessed to design new molecular systems with specific properties, potentially leading to innovations in materials science, drug development, and biotechnology. ■
