Nick Lane

This same chemistry will just go on happening because if you react hydrogen with CO2 and then with another CO2 molecule, the parts of the molecules that are going to react are quite predictable.

Perhaps under very different conditions, you could end up with a... But if you've got essentially similar conditions, you're... And the other thing is we know that even with very different chemistries, you end up with basically a similar subset of molecules.

So from the kind of organics you see on meteorites...

utterly different chemistry going on.

You're dealing with helium radicals, but you're still seeing amino acids and you're still seeing nuclear bases and so on.

So there's a tendency.

These are molecules which are basically stable and tend to be formed under a wide range of conditions.

I would say a substantial fraction.

Like over 1%?

Yes.

I mean, I would imagine 50% or something.

Really?

I mean, you say pull a number out of a hat.

I'm doing exactly what you're saying.

I'm pulling a number out of a hat.

I think this kind of chemistry is going to give you the same nucleotides repeatedly.

That's not to say they're collecting in an ocean at a high concentration.

What you have in a hydrothermal vent is a continuous through flow and within pockets within this vent, within the pores within this vent, bound to the walls pretty much, within cells.

So within a vent system, you could have very high concentrations of things, ultimately.

Yeah.