Into the Impossible With Brian Keating Nick Lane: The Engine That Built Life
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Mar 3, 2026 
Nick Lane, a biochemist at University College London who studies metabolism, mitochondria and the origin of life. He argues life is energy in motion, highlights a primordial metabolic "transformer" predating genes, explains the central role and directionality of the Krebs cycle, and explores hydrothermal vents, mitochondria’s rise, aging, and constraints on alien life.
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Hydrothermal Vents Offer A Natural Continuous Reactor
- Hydrothermal vents provide continuous flow, cell-like porous structure, pH gradients, and catalytic minerals that could drive prebiotic chemistry.
- Lane argues vents mimic a primitive cardiovascular system delivering reagents and sustaining disequilibrium for metabolism to emerge.
pH Gradients Create Strong Thermodynamic Driving Forces
- Natural pH gradients at vents change redox potentials by ~60 mV per pH unit, favoring hydrogen oxidation and CO2 reduction.
- Lane uses the Nernst equation to show alkaline interior and acidic exterior create strong thermodynamic driving forces for CO2 fixation.
Miller Urey Demonstrates Chemistry But Lacks Continuous Flow
- Miller‑Urey showed amino acids form from reducing gases and lightning, but lacks continuous flow and disequilibrium that vents provide.
- Lane contends vents supply ongoing reactivity and structure, addressing why molecules would organize into cells and reproduce.
