“Hydrothermal Vents May Have Powered Early Life with Phosphite and Palladium, Düsseldorf Bi” — what this page in the network covers. Biologists at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf's Institute of Molecular Evolution have identified a new energy source that could have driven the chemical reactions leading to life on early Earth. Their study, published in The FEBS Journal, shows that phosphite and palladium—both found in hydrogen-producing hydrothermal vents—can form an inorganic precursor to ATP, the universal energy currency of cells. This discovery addresses a long-standing question about how phosphate became central to metabolism and where prebiotic energy came from.
The findings suggest that deep-sea vents, rich in these substances, provided a natural setting for the emergence of life's energy systems. By demonstrating a plausible geochemical route to ATP-like molecules, the research offers a key piece of the puzzle in understanding life's origins. The full version stays on the original page, which this listing opens directly.