Browsing by Subject "acids"

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Access status: Open Access ,
Atomic structural templates of the earliest life on Earth - vibration and lightning experiments with quartz and amino acids
(2012) Pawlikowski, Maciej
The atomic structure of minerals and organic molecules is remarkably similar. In particular, between minerals and amino acids, which are the building blocks of life on Earth. The hypothesis tested here is the possibility of energy transfer from minerals to amino acids, in the form of solar energy. The experiments tested the theory that the brighter intensity of light in the early Earth may have kick-started the chemical reactions needed for life. The scenario under investigation is that of light reacting with quartz sand grains exposed at the surface. The quartz grains contain water within the pore spaces, which has basic amino acid structures within in. The experiments determined that the vibration of piezoelectric quartz altered the structure of amino acid molecules.