Study proves plausibility of new pathway to life's chemical building blocks
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - 16:31
in Biology & Nature
For decades, chemists considered a chemical pathway known as the formose reaction the only route for producing sugars essential for life to begin, but more recent research has called into question the plausibility of such thinking. Now a group from The Scripps Research Institute has proven an alternative pathway to those sugars called the glyoxylate scenario, which may push the field of pre-life chemistry past the formose reaction hurdle.
