Posted: Mar 24, 2011 10:06 am
Foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide may have been an important precursor in the chemistry that eventually led to life on Earth, a new study suggests.
Modern analyses of samples archived from 1950s experiments indicate the gas can, under the right conditions, play a role in reactions that produce some of the building blocks of biology - amino acids, which combine to make proteins.
The findings are based on the work of Stanley Miller who famously tried to replicate the chemical "primordial soup" from which life may have emerged.
From here.