A search for thermosynthesis: starvation survival in thermally cycled bacteria

Abstract

In a pioneering study experimental evidence was sought of thermosynthesis, a theoretical biological mechanism for free energy gain from thermal cycling that has been invoked as energy source for the origin of life. A PCR machine applied thermal cycling to the K12 strain of Escherichia coli. The viability of this organism during starvation was determined at cyclic and at constant temperature. The found increase in the viability counts during the first days of starvation is consistent with thermosynthesis. The scattering in the results is however large. Further research is needed to proof that the increase is indeed due to a thermosynthesis process.