The mystery of the lake gave birth to our oldest ancestor

The earliest signs of Earth life may have appeared and evolved in ancient lakes with extremely high levels of phosphorus, new research from the University of Washington (USA) has revealed.

Phosphorus is an element that makes up about 1% of the human body and is an essential part of every living thing on Earth. It is one of the six major chemical elements of life, the "backbone" of DNA and RNA molecules. But this mineral is extremely scarce.

So for 50 years, scientists have been trying to find an answer on how the early and lifeless Earth could produce enough phosphorus to " shape" all species.

The beautiful Mono Lake in the US is a modern version of the mysterious lakes that once formed the ancestors of all species - (photo: Mathew Dillon)

In the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , scientists have the answer: some lakes on Earth are rich in carbon, conditions for phosphate molecules are not destroyed, thus storing enough phosphorus to lead to chemical reactions producing original DNA and RNA.

To own that condition, these lakes must form in a dry environment with high evaporation rate, the water in the lake is a saline and alkaline solution. That's what we call "alkaline lakes" or "soda lakes" , which can be found on all seven continents of modern Earth.

And the more modern versions of those mysterious and magical lakes are Mono Lake in California, Magadi Lake in Kenya and Lorna Lake in India. The water from these lakes was taken to the lab and scientists realized that compared to seawater, they can contain more than 50,000 times the phosphate molecule containing the phosphorus atom.

In most other lakes on Earth, the elemental calcium normally binds to phosphorus to produce a solid mineral of calcium phosphate, which is not for life. But with the carbon-rich environment of these lakes, carbon has clinched with calcium, so phosphorus is free and ready for a "life reaction".

Many years ago, the young Earth once owned many such lakes, with a large part coming from meteorite collisions.

This seems to be in line with an earlier study led by the University of Hawaii (USA), proving that particles covered with carbon dioxide, phosphorus and water clung to meteorites and comets, falling to Earth. , sowing phosphates and diphotsphoric acid , are the two main factors that make up the " building blocks of life".

Therefore, it can be said that from the ancient versions of these mysterious and strange lakes, the ancestors of all species, including us, were born on Earth.