There are legends all over the world that the gods used clay to shape the first person. But what if these myths echo reality in a strange way? UC Honorary biophysicist Helen Hansma believes that primitive cells may have originated from mica clay and therefore become the "mother" of all life.
Perhaps it is this clay that has become the cradle of all life on Earth
The assumption that primitive life may have originated from mica clay appeared about 16 years ago. This is just one of the many "clay" hypotheses that explain the emergence of living cells on Earth. Others include the development of primitive organisms on montmorillonite clay or iron-rich clay.
Helen Hansma, honorary biophysicist at the University of California, USA, believes that mica thin plates form a "big pot" and the main biomolecules are concentrated in it. This new environment provides some protection to the outside world while allowing water and other substances to enter the substances necessary for living cells to appear.
In essence, mica acts as a "scaffold" and "reaction boiler" for organic molecules. At the same time, unlike Montmorillonite , mica clay is more stable because potassium ion combines the mica layer together, thus providing more comfortable conditions for new life. In addition, modern living cells contain a lot of potassium ions, while sodium ions (the main "glue" that bonds the montmorillonite clay layer together) has a much lower concentration.
Finally, another factor conducive to mica clay is that water can flow between its layers, providing energy for primary biochemical processes. Roughly speaking, water itself drives molecules to react with each other, which can eventually lead to the formation of complex protein and nucleic acids.
There are other arguments that support mica clay: for example, it is one of the oldest clays on Earth and existed at the origin of life. Furthermore, even today, organic molecules and even whole living cells can be found between mica plates.
Of course, no one can tell exactly what happened in the Earth's ocean 4 billion years ago, but Dr. Hansma's hypothesis is indeed worth paying attention to.
This study was published in the Journal of Biophysics .
