Blockchain technology could help scientists understand the origin of life

A team of chemists has managed to use blockchain technology originally developed for the cryptocurrency market. On a computer network that could help scientists from around the world investigate the origins of life on Earth In other words, the technology that popularized Bitcoin could extend far beyond the financial sector. The study was published in the scientific journal Chem.

Blockchain is used to mine cryptocurrency and works as a technology that can solve mathematical problems to ‘release’ digital tokens. In this way, the team It used blockchain processes to create a vast network of chemical reactions and search for prebiotic molecules that gave birth to life billions of years ago.

Scientists explain that they used the Golem cryptocurrency mining platform because they did not have any supercomputers to perform the calculations for this question.

Once the necessary data were applied, the computational mechanism resulted in primitive forms of metabolism. It suggests that life on the planet arose without the intervention of enzymes or proteins that could aid primitive chemical reactions.

“HE [Golem] This allows you to get computing power in exchange for cryptocurrency. So I can rent your computer’s idle time. We were looking for a way to increase our computing capacity, and this is a world-class computing plan in which thousands of people collaborate with us, giving us the use of nearly 20,000 CPUs worldwide,” said the Korean Institute for Basic Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Blockchain and the origin of life

Before using Golem to search for results, chemists created the First Network of Life (NOEL) This list, which probably contained data on molecules found on Earth about 4 billion years ago, included elements such as water, ammonia and methane.

After analyzing 11 billion prebiotic reactions, the team narrowed the number down to a manageable 4.9 billion reactions; So the NOEL result showed several hundred molecules that could give rise to life.

The research indicates that these hundreds of reactions are thought to be self-replicating; This means that molecules can produce copies of themselves. One of the events considered necessary for the emergence of life is exact self-replication.

In any case, this does not mean that scientists have found an answer to the origin of plants, animals and humanity; Rather, it means that blockchain can aid in the search for a more definitive answer to this primordial question.

“I hope people in computer science can figure out how we can tokenize cryptocurrencies in a way that benefits global science. “Perhaps society would be happier with the use of cryptocurrencies if we could explain to people that in the process we might discover new laws of biology or some new cancer drugs,” adds Grzybowski.

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