Barry Herschy
University College London
12 Papers
119 Citations
Barry Herschy is an academic researcher from University College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Chemistry & Hydrothermal vent. The author has an hindex of 11, co-authored 12 publications. Previous affiliations of Barry Herschy include University of Bradford & University of South Florida.
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Papers
The Origin of Life in Alkaline Hydrothermal Vents
TL;DR: The perplexing differences in carbon and energy metabolism in methanogenic archaea and acetogenic bacteria are analyzed to propose a possible ancestral mechanism of CO2 reduction in alkaline hydrothermal vents and it is shown that the evolution of active ion pumping could have driven the deep divergence of bacteria and archaea.
292
An Origin-of-Life Reactor to Simulate Alkaline Hydrothermal Vents
Barry Herschy,Alexandra Whicher,Eloi Camprubi,Cameron Watson,Lewis Dartnell,John M. Ward,Julian R. G. Evans,Nick Lane +7 more
TL;DR: A simple electrochemical reactor is built to simulate conditions in alkaline hydrothermal vents, allowing investigation of the possibility that abiotic vent chemistry could prefigure the origins of biochemistry.
178
The origin of life in alkaline hydrothermal vents
Victor Sojo,Barry Herschy,Alexandra Whicher,Eloi Camprubi,Nick Lane +4 more
- 01 Dec 2016
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the differences in carbon and energy metabolism in methanogenic archaea and acetogenic bacteria to propose a possible ancestral mechanism of CO2 reduction in alkaline hydrothermal vents.
116
Archean phosphorus liberation induced by iron redox geochemistry.
Barry Herschy,Sae Jung Chang,Ruth E. Blake,Aivo Lepland,Heather Abbott-Lyon,Jacqueline M. Sampson,Z. D. Atlas,Terence P. Kee,Matthew A. Pasek +8 more
TL;DR: A new route to solubilizing phosphorus in the ancient oceans is reported: reduction of phosphate to phosphite by iron(II) at low (<200 °C) diagenetic temperatures, which ameliorates the issue of a low Archean phosphorus supply.
Acetyl Phosphate as a Primordial Energy Currency at the Origin of Life.
TL;DR: It is concluded that AcP can phosphorylate biologically meaningful substrates in a manner analogous to ATP, promoting the origins of metabolism, but is unlikely to have driven polymerization of macromolecules such as polypeptides or RNA in free solution.