Video taking off 10x its usual first day

Could cyanide have helped life begin?

BBC Earth Science follows Dr Jiangfeng Xu from a toxic laboratory sample to a theory involving sunlight, meteorite craters and early Earth.

Channel:

BBC Earth Science Story of October 21, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 215,525 views a day, 10 times a normal first day on this channel (20,977).

What If the Secret to Life Is Something Deadly? | BBC Earth Science

Things we can learn from the video

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0:04Xu introduces toxic sodium cyanide as a starting material for research into life's origins.
0:43A solar simulator supplies ultraviolet light to drive reactions under conditions intended to resemble early Earth.
1:08The reactions produce amino acids and precursors to nucleosides and lipids, rather than living organisms.
1:54An impact-crater hypothesis connects meteorite strikes, cyanide production and pools where prebiotic reactions could occur.
3:09Mars may preserve ancient crater evidence lost on Earth, helping scientists investigate possible settings for life's origins.

First comes the poison. Dr Jiangfeng Xu presents sodium cyanide, a substance whose danger seems at odds with his research question: could it have helped supply the ingredients for life?

In BBC Earth Science's clip from Science's Greatest Mysteries, Xu puts a cyanide solution into a solar simulator. The machine recreates the intense ultraviolet radiation of early Earth. After several hours, he explains, the experiment produces amino acids and precursors to nucleosides and lipids, important components of living systems. It is chemistry that could precede life, not life appearing in a test tube.

The segment drew about 145,000 views in its first twelve hours, an unusually fast start for the channel's regular videos. The comments were already several times busier than a usual full first day, with viewers asking about atmospheric differences and what structures might have supported early biochemistry.

The bigger question is where such reactions could have happened naturally. An animated meteorite strike illustrates a possible sequence: an impact heats the atmosphere, generates cyanide and leaves a crater basin. Rain could then carry that cyanide into pools where further reactions take place.

That makes the crater more than a scar left by destruction. In this hypothesis, it could also provide a setting for life's beginnings. But Earth's plate tectonics has erased much of the earliest crater evidence. The clip closes by turning toward Mars, where ancient craters may preserve clues that our own planet has lost.

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What viewers say

What about atmospheric differences?
@2HighNoonSee it on YouTube
How about hydrocarbons? How did they originate. Can micelles work to support early biochemistry or are vesicles required?
@hughofIrelandSee it on YouTube
Oh my god that test tubes looks like the test tube from Prometheus
@ALBERTTHOMAS-TONYSee it on YouTube

Public comments from the video's page on YouTube