Mysterious 'life-like' creature discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean

Strange structures surrounding deep-ocean hydrothermal vents may help us explain the origin of life.

Research led by Dr. Ryuhei Nakamura from the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) and the Earth and Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan) has discovered mysterious inorganic nanostructures described as "life-like".

The paper, published in the journal Nature Communications, explains that seawater seeps deep into the Earth through cracks in the ocean floor, where it is heated, rises to the surface, and is released back into the ocean through cracks called hydrothermal vents.

Environment around the hydrothermal system on the seabed - (Photo: SCITECH DAILY).

The rising hot water contains dissolved minerals from deep within the planet, and when it meets the cooler ocean water, chemical reactions push the mineral ions out of the water, where they form solid structures around the vent called precipitates.

Hydrothermal vents are thought to be the birthplace of life on Earth because they provide the necessary conditions: stability, mineral richness, and energy sources.

The authors studied hydrothermal vents containing serpentinite because they are surrounded by highly complex layered precipitates formed from metal oxides, hydroxides, and carbonates.

Samples were collected from the Shinkai Seep Field, located in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of 5,743 m.

Surprisingly, they identified the presence of osmotic energy transfer, a key function in modern biological life, in the nanostructures surrounding this hydrothermal vent.

In other words, around these hydrothermal vents are tiny structures that mimic the way life creates energy to survive, a primitive form of "eating".

So this discovery is a hint for how life began from inorganic elements, around hydrothermal vents billions of years ago.

These nanostructures self-organize and act as selective ion channels, generating energy that can be harnessed as electricity.

This discovery could not only impact our understanding of the origin of life, but could also be applied to industrial green energy exploitation.