We've Been Wrong About the Origins of Life for 90 Years

For nearly nine decades, science's favorite explanation for the origin of life has been the "primordial soup." This is the idea that life began from a series of chemical reactions in a warm pond on Earth's surface, triggered by an external energy source such as lightning strike or ultraviolet (UV) light. But recent research adds weight to an alternative idea, that life arose deep in the ocean within warm, rocky structures called hydrothermal vents. A...