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Is This How Life Started? New Evidence Changes Everything

2026-03-06 Science & Technology
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Anton Petrov
Anton Petrov
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Support this channel on Patreon to help me make this a full time job: https://www.patreon.com/whatdamath (Unreleased videos, extra footage, DMs, no ads) Alternatively, PayPal donations can be sent here: http://paypal.me/whatdamath Get a Wonderful Person Tee: https://teespring.com/stores/whatdamath More cool designs are on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QFIrFX Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about major discoveries about the origins of life on Earth Links: https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2666-979X%2826%2900002-9 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt2760 Additional videos: https://youtu.be/r7FVQ3rr0xU https://youtu.be/GW8GxvWIr-o #life #originoflife #biology 0:00 Origin of life on Earth updates 0:38 LUCA - last universal common ancestor 3:15 Pre-LUCA era explored 5:30 First genes found and what they show us 7:15 RNA World Hypothesis 8:45 QT45 Molecule and why it's so important 10:30 Conclusions Enjoy and please subscribe Bitcoin/Ethereum to spare? Donate them here to help this channel grow! bc1qnkl3nk0zt7w0xzrgur9pnkcduj7a3xxllcn7d4 or ETH: 0x60f088B10b03115405d313f964BeA93eF0Bd3DbF The hardware used to record these videos: New Camera: https://amzn.to/4pCVINS CPU: https://amzn.to/4qXIaxC Video Card: https://amzn.to/2M1W26C Motherboard: https://amzn.to/2JYGiQQ RAM: https://amzn.to/2Mwy2t4 PSU: https://amzn.to/2LZcrIH Case: https://amzn.to/2MwJZz4 Microphone: https://amzn.to/2t5jTv0 Mixer: https://amzn.to/2JOL0oF Recording and Editing: https://amzn.to/2LX6uvU Some of the above are affiliate links, meaning I would get a (very small) percentage of the price paid. Thank you to all Patreon supporters of this channel Special thanks also goes to all the wonderful supporters of the channel through YouTube Memberships Credit: Mark Garlick www.markgarlick.com Kristian Le Vay and Hannes Mutschler - https://portlandpress.com/emergtoplifesci/article/3/5/469/220563/The-difficult-case-of-an-RNA-only-origin-of-life Ian Alexander CC BY SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor#/media/File:Inferring_LUCA's_genome.svg Zephyris CC BY SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemoglobin#/media/File:1GZX_Haemoglobin.png Licenses used: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and relevant Creative Commons licenses

Top Comments (10)

@harriettannediger8772 2026-03-05

When does chemistry become life. Doesn't seem like there is a hard line.

427 210 replies
@SpukyDuky 2026-03-06

Hi wonderful Anton, this is person

215 12 replies
@ninehundreddollarluxuryyac5958 2026-03-06

What's unappreciated about molecular level life is how huge a tiny puddle is, with more reproducing individuals than there are humans on earth. In an ocean of those guys, the most unlikely things happen every day.

181 30 replies
@folalibi2743 2026-03-07

Origin-of-life science is the ultimate cold case. It's amazing that humans can make progress in this kind of endeavor!

72 9 replies
@oppanheimer 2026-03-06

It's good to see progress in understanding the origins of life

64 8 replies
@white.ghost.73 2026-03-06

Thank you for clearing out from the beginning that we don't have the answer yet

31 5 replies
@George-rk7ts 2026-03-06

Excellent work, Anton.

18
@bastiangugu4083 2026-03-07

Life starts for all inside a cell, but crooks might end in one as well! Original is in German: "Das Leben kommt auf alle Fälle aus einer Zelle, doch manchmal endet’s auch – bei Strolchen – in einer solchen." 🙂(Heinz Ehrhardt)

9
@stiwo1988 2026-03-07

One thing that really changes the perspective here is realizing that a star might not actually be necessary for life. If the key ingredients are liquid water, chemistry and a stable energy gradient, then hydrothermal systems under ice could support biology for billions of years without any sunlight. We already see ecosystems on Earth around deep-sea vents that run entirely on chemical energy. That means icy moons like Europa or Enceladus might just be the visible examples of something much bigger. Now imagine rogue planets drifting through interstellar space. If they have thick ice shells and internal heat from radioactive decay or tidal history, they could still maintain subsurface oceans for extremely long periods of time. So here's the interesting question: What if the universe isn't mostly sterile space with rare life around stars… but instead full of dark ocean worlds where life evolves quietly under ice? In that case the cosmos could be biologically rich — just mostly invisible. Curious what others think.

7
@elimalinsky7069 2026-03-08

I'm so glad the Europa Clipper mission was able to launch. Hope we might detect biosignatures under the ice in the next decade or so.

3

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