Amino acids and other molecules important to the origin of life can be enriched within networks of rocky fractures, which would have been common on the early Earth
Pantetheine, which helps enzymes to work and is found in every organism, can be formed by simple reactions and may have played a role in the origins of life
Earth lacks some of the ingredients that would have been key to the origins of life – they may have been delivered to glacial ponds by tiny specks of cosmic dust
Chemical analysis of rocks found in South Africa shows that ancient microorganisms sustained themselves in a variety of ways, adding to evidence for an early origin of life on Earth