Amino acids in the early earth

From the blog, Supernova Condensate:

Ever since the famous Miller-Urey experiment, it's been known that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, can be formed with relative ease by simple natural processes. In the experiment, 10 of the 20 amino acids used by life were created readily in conditions mimicking the atmosphere of the early planet Earth. Other theories of abiotic amino acid synthesis include interstellar environments such as molecular cloud cores and protostellar disks, as well as hydrothermal vents (though the latter idea is still disputed).

Higgs and Pudritz (McMaster University, Canada), in this paper, show that those same 10 amino acids are created readily, regardless of the source. The reason? Simple thermodynamics! In fact, thermodynamics can predict the order of abundance of those molecules. It can predict it so accurately, in fact, that a nearly exact match is evident between theoretical predictions and the observed abundances in meteorites. There are lots of things that can be debated in most theories regarding life's origins, but let's face it; you can't argue with thermodynamics. It governs chemistry ubiquitously.

It's likely then, that the earliest proteins used those 10 amino acids, with the others evolving later -- in keeping with evolutionary theories. So the question of exactly where life first started has relatively little impact on the chemistry that life would have used. Fascinating.

The implications are profound. And that isn't a word I use lightly. Simply, if these 10 amino acids were the basis of life on Earth, and they form so favourably, then there's a very good chance that life on other planets may have originally used the same ten amino acids. The fundamentals of early biochemistry may well be universal! Now that's exciting!