Ah, the origin of life — a topic that has given rise to endless debates and headaches for scientists and researchers. While the scientific puzzle remains yet to be solved, we can agree that the world as we know it looked a lot different upon its birth 4.5 billion years ago, and so did the components that make it up. Oxygen, a key element to the survival of life today, didn’t accumulate in the atmosphere until about 2.33 billion years ago.
So what exactly comprised the atmosphere of early Earth? Ironically, cyanide, a fatally poisonous substance, may have been a key building block of early life on Earth. Cyanide has been widely considered an important component in the primordial soup, a solution of organic compounds responsible for the origin of life.
