Journal
ORIGINS OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION OF THE BIOSPHERE
Volume 32, Issue 3, Pages 209-218Publisher
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBL
DOI: 10.1023/A:1019514022822
Keywords
alternative base; ammonium cyanide; chemical evolution; cold origin of life; eutectic concentration; nucleic acid base; pyrimidine; purine
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A wide variety of pyrimidines and purines were identified as products of a dilute frozen ammonium cyanide solution that had been held at -78degreesC for 27 years. This demonstrates that both pyrimidines and purines could have been produced on the primitive earth in a short time by eutectic concentration of HCN, even though the concentration of HCN in the primitive ocean may have been low. We suggest that eutectic freezing is the most plausible demonstrated mechanism by which HCN polymerizations could have produced biologically important prebiotic compounds.
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