Life began in an environment that was out of equilibrium; there were naturally occurring gradients. In the case of the ocean vents, these were proton and temperature waterfalls – hot, alkaline water in contact with a cold, acid ocean. These gradients can provide the thermodynamic imperative for simple chemicals to assemble themselves into more complex ones. In the gradient-rich and ingredient-rich environments of vents, we know that complex molecules such as acetyl thioesters and pyruvate are formed. These are molecules, more complex than glucose, that are used at the heart of life’s metabolic
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