Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Chemical Gardens as Flow-through Reactors Simulating Natural Hydrothermal Systems
Published on: November 18, 2015
The spontaneous development of biology from chemistry
1Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61802, USA. mjd@life.uiuc.edu
Abstract:
Biology arose as a spontaneous development from the chemistry of the early Earth by Free Energy-driven processes that occurred in common environments involving significant populations of systems. Molecular imprinting to matrices is capable of catalysis of polymer formation and reproduction that, in association with self-assembled membranes, could lead to proto-enzymes, proto-ribosomes, and proto-cells. Proto-cells would evolve via processes analogous to Darwinian natural selection. These hypotheses are testable by controlled laboratory experiments. What we call "life" is the sum of properties of such highly evolved systems.
Related Concept Videos
History of Microbiology
Spontaneity
Origin of Cellular Life
Introduction to Chemical Reactions
Energetics of Solution Formation
When the strengths of the intermolecular forces of attraction between solute and solvent species in a solution are no different than those present in the separated components, the solution is formed with no accompanying energy change. Formation of the solution requires the solute–solute and solvent–solvent electrostatic forces to...
Conditions on Early Earth

