Experiment from America: Unexpected things about alien creatures

Aliens are entirely capable of being born from "deadly" things like radioactive metals and some things that are completely different from Earth life.

New research led by biologist, bacteriologist and evolutionary biologist Betül Kaçar from the University of Wisconsin - Madison (USA) has identified 270 different autocatalytic reaction cycles , most of which do not require organic compounds.

This also means the search for aliens may need to be reoriented.

New research shows that biochemical reactions can originate from the most bizarre materials and conditions - (Graphic: Betül Kaçarr).

"One of the main reasons origin-of-life researchers are interested in autocatalysis is because reproduction itself is an example of an autocatalytic process," Dr. Kaçar told Live Science.

Autocatalysis is a type of chemical interaction that is key to life, including life on Earth. It is thought to be the factor that helped combine the initial inanimate "building blocks of life" into actual life, and then continued to sustain that life to reproduce and evolve.

Previously, it was believed that the "life-forming reaction" required organic compounds.

But the 270 cycles that Dr. Kaçar's team identified hardly require organic compounds, but originate from the most "deadly" things for Earth's organisms, such as radioactive mercury or thorium, rare gases such as xenon.

Some cycles occur under extreme conditions such as extremely high or low temperatures or pressures.

Therefore, the authors conclude that there is good reason to predict that the autocatalytic process that creates alien life could occur easily in elements other than the usual "backbone" elements of terrestrial organisms such as carbon, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus.

Notably, most of the 270 cycles consist of two reactions, and eight of them even consist of four or more reactions. These can combine to form a large complex biochemical reaction chain.

Until now, the hunt for extraterrestrial life has often targeted " potential biosignatures ," such as evidence of elements or compounds necessary for Earth-like life shown in the spectra of planets: oxygen, methane, phosphate compounds.

However, the results recently published in the scientific journal Journal of the American Chemical Society show that planets that do not have these "vital factors" , or have completely different and terrible environments compared to Earth's creatures, still have the chance to possess their own form of life.