Press
El País / US Edition
Protocells emerge in experiment simulating lifeless world: ‘There is no divine breath of life’
Researchers from a Spanish laboratory observe, for the first time, the formation of compartments alongside the basic ingredients of organisms
Geologist Juan Manuel García-Ruiz still speaks with amazement about how he and his colleagues have created “a proto-world” in their laboratory, located just 1,500 meters from La Concha beach in the Spanish city of San Sebastián. It may sound monumental, and it is, but what they have is a small, transparent container, just three liters in size, where they’ve placed a mixture of water, methane, nitrogen, and ammonia, adding electric discharges to simulate the harsh conditions of the primitive Earth.
