Salty Origins for Early Earth Biomolecules

早期地球生物大分子的盐分起源 Salty Origins for Early Earth Biomolecules

The early Earth’s oceans were home to a lot of interesting chemistry. Now scientists have found that amino acids thought to be present way back when could have been cooked into other compounds vital for life—an idea you should take with a grain of salt.
早期地球的海洋是许多有趣的化学作用的发生地。现在科学家们发现氨基酸可以产生许多其它对生命来说至关重要的化合物——而这需要有盐的存在。
Four billion years ago, the planet was probably covered by a salty ocean, dotted with volcanic islands and short lived continents. German researchers recently mimicked some of the chemistry taking place along the coasts of the volcanic islands. They created an approximation of primordial seawater. Then they evaporated it, to simulate what went on at those volcanic coasts. They baked the residue, creating salt crusts.
四十亿年前，我们的星球可能被一个咸海所覆盖，点缀着零星的火山岛以及小型的活动的大陆。德国研究者最近模拟了一些发生在火山岛海岸边的化学作用。他们设计一组近似的原始海水。然后把海水蒸干，以模拟发生在这些火山旁边的事情。他们烘干了残渣，建造了盐地壳。
At those high temperatures, amino acids interacted with metal ions in the salt crusts and were converted into other important biological molecules, such as pyrroles—which are part of the structures of chlorophyll in plants and hemoglobin in animals. The scientists presented their findings September 17th at the European Planetary Science Conference in Potsdam.
在高温下，氨基酸与金属离子在盐地壳中发生作用，转化为其它重要的生物学分子，如pyrrole——它是植物体中的叶绿素和动物体中的血红素结构的组成部分。科学家9月17号在Potsdam（波茨坦）举行的欧洲行星科学大会上公布了他们的发现。
Over hundreds of thousands of years, these novel compounds could have built up along the volcanic coasts, creating materials for the first living cells. Which were really worth their salt.
在千百万年间，这些重要的化合物曾经在火山旁边建立，为第一个活细胞的出现创造了物质条件。这对于这些盐来说实在是值得。