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Scientists have found that one of the key pillars of theory around how life works – that it depends on carbon – may not be the case on other planets. Here on Earth, life depends on organic compounds which are composed of carbon, and often involve other elements such as sulphur, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and phosphorus. With organic compounds, life is partly sustained by chemical interactions called autocatalysis, which are self-sustaining. That means they produce molecules which then enable the reaction to happen again, and do not need any outside influence to keep going on. In the new study, scientists looked for autocatalysis in non-organic compounds. The theory is that if autocatalysis helps drive a process called abiogenesis – the origin process for life – then this origin process could also come from non-organic matter. Betül Kaçar, an astrobiologist, bacteriologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told news outlet Space.com: “It's important to explore these possibilities so that we have an idea of what all forms of life can look like, not just Earth life.” "One of the major reasons that origin-of-life researchers care about autocatalysis is because reproduction — a key feature of life — is an example of autocatalysis. “Life catalyses the formation of more life. One cell produces two cells, which can become four and so on. “As the number of cells multiply, the number and diversity of possible interactions multiplies accordingly.” The scientists searched in a huge trove of existing scientific documents for examples of autocatalysis, and found 270 different cycles of the reactions. Most of the 270 examples did not feature organic compounds, but rather elements which are rare in life forms such as mercury, or the radioactive metal thorium. “It was thought that these sorts of reactions are very rare,” Kaçar said in a statement. “We are showing that it's actually far from rare. You just need to look in the right place.” Now, it means scientists can test these cycles to get a better understanding of how autocatalysis can work. “The cycles presented here are an array of basic recipes that can be mixed and matched in ways that haven't been tried before on our planet,” said study author Zhen Peng, also an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “They might lead to the discovery of completely new examples of complex chemistry that work in conditions where carbon- or even silicon-based cycles are too either combusted or frozen out.” The scientists published their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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A legal expert at Europe’s top court has said a lower court committed “errors in law” when it threw out a decision by the European Commission which would force Apple to pay more than 13 billion euro in back taxes to Ireland. The non-binding opinion is seen as a significant setback to Ireland’s defence of its past tax treatment of the US technology giant. In 2016, following an EU investigation which launched in 2014, the commission concluded that Ireland gave undue tax benefits to Apple, which would be illegal under EU state aid rules. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. However, the European Commission subsequently appealed against the decision to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) saying the lower court’s ruling was legally incorrect. On Thursday, Giovanni Pitruzzella, an advocate general at the CJEU, agreed that the earlier ruling had contained “a series of errors in law”. He said the judgment should be set aside and referred the case back to the General Court for a new decision. While the opinion of the advocate general is non-binding, it is usually followed by the court and therefore could have significant implications for corporation tax bills. There was no sweetheart deal Finance Minister Michael McGrath The commission’s original position was that that tax rulings issued by Ireland to Apple in 1991 and 2007 substantially and artificially lowered the tax paid by the iPhone manufacturer in the country since the early 90s, in a way which did not correspond to economic reality. As a result, competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Ireland had granted illegal tax benefits which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other business over many years. The investigation found that Apple had paid an effective corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003, down to 0.005% in 2014, 50 euro for every one million euro of profit. The process involved recording almost all sales profits of two Irish incorporated companies, which the commission said only existed on paper. The companies, fully owned by Apple, held the rights to use the firm’s intellectual property to manufacture and sell its products outside North and South America. The commission said this situation allowed Apple to avoid taxation on almost all profits generated by sales of its products in the entire EU single market. It said this was due to Apple’s decision to record all sales in Ireland rather than in the countries where the products were sold. The findings were disputed by the Irish State, which said all tax owed had been collected, and Apple, which had come under scrutiny in the US for its tax practices years earlier. At the time, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, branded the EU findings as “political crap”, maddening and untrue. The Irish Government, which was also used to defending a comparatively low 12.5% corporation tax rate, said Europe had overstepped the mark in attempting to dictate tax laws and enforce retrospective taxes decades later. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. The General Court found that the commission had not shown that there was an advantage deriving from the adoption of the tax rulings. However, the commission subsequently appealed the decision to the European Court of Justice with Ms Vestager saying the lower court’s ruling contained errors of law. On Thursday, the advocate general agreed the General Court had erred when it ruled that the Commission had not shown to the requisite legal standard that the intellectual property licences held by the two incorporated companies and related profits, generated by the sales of Apple products outside the US, had to be attributed for tax purposes to the Irish branches. The advocate general was of the view that the General Court also failed to assess correctly the substance and consequences of certain methodological errors that, according to the Commission decision, “vitiated the tax rulings”. It is the non-binding opinion of Mr Pitruzzella that it is necessary for the General Court to carry out a new assessment. The decision of the CJEU on the matter is expected next year and will have significant implications for how member states grant tax breaks to major firms. Apple has argued it has been paying tax on the profits in question in the US, while Ireland has seen it necessary to defend its reputation on taxation issues to protect foreign direct investment. Last weekend, Finance Minister Michael McGrath had said the advocate general’s opinion would be “significant” but added it is not the final step in the process. Mr McGrath said: “We are confident in our position in respect of the Apple case. “We take encouragement from the findings they have made so far, but it is a significant day.” He added: “There was no sweetheart deal. “This was the application of Ireland’s statutory corporation tax code.” In the interim, the 13.1 billion euro has been held in an escrow fund pending the outcome of the case. The money, with interest, is due to be entered into the Irish exchequer if the commission wins the case. However, other member states may make claims that they are owed some of the money. If the commission loses the appeal, the large sum will be returned to Apple. Read More Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network NatWest creates new AI-powered chatbot capable of ‘human-like’ conversations

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