Life May Have Started Twice | Science News

Science News Today | 2 Min News | The Daily News Now! · Aug 20, 2026 · 1m

New research flips the script on how life began, suggesting Earth may have hosted two separate origins of life—both born from a single, non-living chemical system that thrived near deep-sea vents. Instead of LUCA being a primitive cell, scientists now propose it was a metal-dependent chemical network using iron and nickel to power early metabolic reactions, blurring the line between chemistry and biology. This radical view hints that bacteria and archaea may have evolved independently from this hybrid ancestor, reshaping our understanding of life’s gradual emergence from Earth’s raw…