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Did jolts of ‘microlightning’ in primordial mist kick-start Earth’s earliest life? Scientists offer clues | CNN

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Electrical energy may have sparked the beginnings of life on Earth billions of years ago .

A new study suggests fizzes of barely visible “microlightning” generated between charged droplets of water mist could have been potent enough to cook up amino acids from inorganic material.

Amino acids are life’s most basic building blocks and would have been the first step toward the evolution of life.

A more likely scenario is that mist-generated microlightning constantly zapped amino acids into existence from pools and puddles.

Microlightning may have been too infrequent to produce amino acids in quantities sufficient for life, Zare says.

But questions remain about life’s origins, he added.

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