NASA finds Titan's lakes may be creating vesicles with primitive cell walls
12 comments
·September 10, 2025andrewflnr
rolph
amphiphillic vesicles are a stepping stone for persistent molecular forms. essentially a reaction vessel, insulating the contents from the extravesicular mayhem.
jojobas
It's thought that life on Earth started with RNA mayhem, not with vessels to isolate from it.
andrewflnr
RNA world is mainstream, but a few scientists have proposed that something like cell membranes, such as these vesicles, came first and provided the environment for more complex chemistry.
ggm
I like the "vesicle first" theory because planar sheets of reaction can form perturbations, so getting from two surfaces mixing to complex shapes and enclosures feels plausible given any significant vibration or wave.
Once you have an enclosure you have potential for osmosis and other differentials across the boundary. It's not life Jim, but it's one hell of a building block/precursor.
polishdude20
This is very similar to Nick Lane's theory of the origins of life.
cantor_S_drug
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem on the topic of Ocean is Conscious.
null
The linked paper is open access: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...
Among other things, it contains details on what amphiphiles might actually be present on Titan, a very nice set of diagrams explaining their proposed process, and proposals for lab experiments to verify whether the process is possible. I've had a soft spot for the vesicle-first theory of abiogenesis since I first heard of it, so I hope someone runs the experiments. But as far as I can tell, this is all theoretical so far.