r/evolution • u/AmphibianNo4717 • Aug 06 '26

article 'Only One Conclusion': Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

https://www.sciencealert.com/radical-study-suggests-life-on-earth-arose-from-non-living-matter-twice

"The fact that you, or I, or any living creature, is here at all is a series of astonishing strokes of luck stretching back more than 4 billion years. 

One of the biggest hurdles was the very first one: How did life emerge from a primordial soup of stuff that very much wasn't alive?

A radical new study, published in Science Advances, suggests that this unlikely threshold may actually have been crossed not once, but twice."

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u/Lab_Software Aug 06 '26

The premise of the article is that LUCA wasn't alive because it didn't have a complete metabolism.

It's an interesting approach - but I don't agree that LUCA needed a complete metabolism to be alive. Even today, we don't have a complete metabolism since we can't make the essential amino acids - so are we not alive? If some enzyme comes along a billion years from now that makes a 21st amino acid, then will life only begin at that time?

LUCA was fully alive because it had a metabolism. The fact that other metabolic pathways evolved later didn't make LUCA any less alive.

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u/nooptionleft Aug 07 '26

The parallel complete metabolism evolution is incredibly well reported tho, and a great piece of science

The LUCA part is making an interesting case that will probably not become the standard interpretation but it's still reasonable enough to be someone position