Scientists in the US have carried out experiments confirming that ultraviolet light could have driven the synthesis of simple prebiotically important sugars under conditions found on early Earth.1
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UV light photooxidises cyanocuprates,producing aqueous electrons,which are key for putting into motion a reaction network capable of producing glycolaldehyde and glyceraldehyde
Back in 2012,Dougal Ritson and John Sutherland,2at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge,UK,synthesised sugars from cyanocuprates using ultraviolet light – findings that supported the RNA world hypothesis for the origin of life.NowZoe ToddandDimitar Sasselovfrom the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics,and their colleagues have performed similar experiments,but at lower,and more representative,wavelengths than those previously considered.
Read thefull storyby Lynn Murphy on新利手机客户端Chemistry World.
References
1 Zoe Toddet al,化学。Commun.,2018,DOI:10.1039/c7cc07748c(This article is open access.)
2 D Ritson and J Sutherland,Nat.化学。,2012,4,895 (DOI:10.1038/nchem.1467)
