   A coherent pathway — which starts from no more than rocks,
water and carbon dioxide and leads to the emergence of the
strange bio-energetic properties of living cells — has been
traced for the first time in a major hypothesis paper in Cell
this week.    The answer lies in the chemistry of deep-sea
hydrothermal vents. In their paper Nick Lane (UCL, Genetics,
Evolution and Environment) and Bill Martin (University of
Dusseldorf) address the question of where all this energy came
from — and why all life as we know it conserves energy in the
peculiar form of ion gradients across membranes.   Written By:
Science Daily continue to source article at sciencedaily.com
1. Does this indicate that organic molecules (or even a living
‘protocell’)  might be created experimentally by mimicking
conditions in found in deep-sea hydrothermal vents?       (my
ignorance is unlimited!)    2. Nodhimmi      I think it would be
very difficult to copy the conditions of these temperatures and
pressures in a lab!     Organic molec