Study suggests life on Earth may have had two independent origins

A new study published in Science Advances suggests that life on Earth may have emerged through two independent origins rather than descending from a single ancestral cell. Researchers at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf analyzed approximately 420 core metabolic reactions to trace the evolutionary assembly of the metabolic networks shared by all living organisms.

The findings indicate that the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) relied on environmental metals for about half of its energy-producing functions, rather than fully formed enzymes. This suggests that bacteria and archaea may have developed independent enzymatic solutions for the same metabolic tasks, following separate evolutionary paths from primordial hydrothermal vent environments roughly 4 billion years ago.

While the scientific consensus holds that life emerged from non-living molecules through abiogenesis, this research challenges the long-held assumption of a single common ancestor, providing new insights into how life might emerge on other planets.