Photosynthesis of Amino-Acids from Paraformaldehyde involving the Fixation of Nitrogen in the Presence of Colloidal Molybdenum Oxide as Catalyst

Symmetries in Science IV

“…Banin and Navrot found that, when elemental enrichment factors in living organisms were plotted against the ionic potential of the elements, the pattern was strikingly similar to that found in present-day seawater. They concluded that this observation supports the hypothesis that life began in a water--rich environment, i.e., in primitive seawater (Banin and Navrot, 1975).…”

“…Sane elements show strong regional variations, ~hile some others are fairly constant in concentration. The suggestion that the concentrations in seawater were those crucial to the origin of elemental requirements has been often discussed (see Chappell et al, 1 974;Jukes, 1 974;Orgel, 1 974;Banin and Navrot, 1975).…”

Jeewanu, or the ‘particles of life’

“…Bahadur reported on a synthesis of amino acids from paraformaldehyd plus colloidal molybdenum oxide or potassium nitrate and ferric chloride by sunlight (Bahadur et al 1958). It appears that this experimental approach was seminal for the assays to produce Jeewanu.…”

Prebiotic Chemistry: The Amino Acid and Peptide World

“…Methane and ammonia were too unstable under the ultraviolet radiation of the sun and rapidly decomposed [13,23], ammonia would, besides that, have also been removed from the atmosphere by dissolution in the oceans. Considering this new perception of primordial earth atmospheric conditions many experiments have been performed to reenact the formation of amino acids on the early earth but until recently none of them could be produced without the addition of reducing gases to the reaction mixture [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. In 2003 it was shown for the first time that also in a neutral simulated primordial atmosphere amino acids could be formed [27].…”