The Search for Life's Origins

The Search for Life's Origins PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309042461
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
The field of planetary biology and chemical evolution draws together experts in astronomy, paleobiology, biochemistry, and space science who work together to understand the evolution of living systems. This field has made exciting discoveries that shed light on how organic compounds came together to form self-replicating molecules-the origin of life. This volume updates that progress and offers recommendations on research programs-including an ambitious effort centered on Mars-to advance the field over the next 10 to 15 years. The book presents a wide range of data and research results on these and other issues: The biogenic elements and their interaction in the interstellar clouds and in solar nebulae. Early planetary environments and the conditions that lead to the origin of life. The evolution of cellular and multicellular life. The search for life outside the solar system. This volume will become required reading for anyone involved in the search for life's beginnings-including exobiologists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, and U.S. space and science policymakers.

The Search for Life's Origins

The Search for Life's Origins PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309042461
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Get Book Here

Book Description
The field of planetary biology and chemical evolution draws together experts in astronomy, paleobiology, biochemistry, and space science who work together to understand the evolution of living systems. This field has made exciting discoveries that shed light on how organic compounds came together to form self-replicating molecules-the origin of life. This volume updates that progress and offers recommendations on research programs-including an ambitious effort centered on Mars-to advance the field over the next 10 to 15 years. The book presents a wide range of data and research results on these and other issues: The biogenic elements and their interaction in the interstellar clouds and in solar nebulae. Early planetary environments and the conditions that lead to the origin of life. The evolution of cellular and multicellular life. The search for life outside the solar system. This volume will become required reading for anyone involved in the search for life's beginnings-including exobiologists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, and U.S. space and science policymakers.

The Chemistry of Life’s Origins

The Chemistry of Life’s Origins PDF Author: J. Mayo Greenberg
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401119368
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
This volume contains the lectures presented at the second course of the International School of Space Chemistry held in Erice (Sicily) from October 20 - 30 1991 at the "E. Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture". The course was attended by 58 participants from 13 countries. The Chemistry of Life's Origins is well recognized as one of the most critical subjects of modem chemistry. Much progress has been made since the amazingly perceptive contributions by Oparin some 70 years ago when he first outlined a possible series of steps starting from simple molecules to basic building blocks and ultimate assembly into simple organisms capable of replicating, catalysis and evolution to higher organisms. The pioneering experiments of Stanley Miller demonstrated already forty years ago how easy it could have been to form the amino acids which are critical to living organisms. However we have since learned and are still learning a great deal more about the primitive conditions on earth which has led us to a rethinking of where and how the condition for prebiotic chemical processes occurred. We have also learned a great deal more about the molecular basis for life. For instance, the existence of DNA was just discovered forty years ago.

The Origin of Life

The Origin of Life PDF Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141941839
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
The origins of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. Growing evidence suggests that the first organisms lived deep underground, in environments previously thought to be uninhabitable, and that microbes carried inside rocks have travelled between Earth and Mars. But the question remains: how can life spring into being from non-living chemicals? THE FIFTH MIRACLE reveals the remarkable new theories and discoveries that seem set to transform our understanding of life's role in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.

Origins of Life in the Universe

Origins of Life in the Universe PDF Author: Robert Jastrow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521825768
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The most fascinating questions on the history of the Universe are answered in this text.

The Origins of Life

The Origins of Life PDF Author: David W. Deamer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781936113040
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Life arose on Earth more than three billion years ago. How the first self-replicating systems emerged from prebiotic chemistry and evolved into primitive cell-like entities is an area of intense research, spanning molecular and cellular biology, organic chemistry, cosmology, geology, and atmospheric science. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology provides a comprehensive account of the environment of the early Earth and the mechanisms by which the organic molecules present may have self-assembled to form replicating material such as RNA and other polymers. The contributors examine the energetic requirements for this process and focus in particular on the essential role of semi-permeable compartments in containment of primitive genetic systems. Also covered in the book are new synthetic approaches for fabricating cellular systems, the potentially extraterrestrial origin of life's building blocks, and the possibility that life once existed on Mars. Comprising five sections Setting the Stage, Components of First Life, Primitive Systems, First Polymers, and Transition to a Microbial World it is a vital reference for all scientists interested in the origin of life on Earth and the likelihood that it has arisen on other planets

Genesis

Genesis PDF Author: Robert M. Hazen
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 9780309103107
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Scientist Robert Hazen attempts to offer a scientific explanation of how life on Earth began nearly four billion years ago, describing the sequence of events that caused non-living chemicals to become alive and create life.

Life's Origin

Life's Origin PDF Author: J. William Schopf
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520233904
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This volume explores the historical and current theories about the origin of life, addressing in particular the three key puzzles of how and when life began on Earth and in what form.

The Genetic Code and the Origin of Life

The Genetic Code and the Origin of Life PDF Author: Lluis Ribas de Pouplana
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387268871
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Early Thoughts on RNA and the Origin of Life The full impact of the essential role of the nucleic acids in biological systems was forcefully demonstrated by the research community in the 1950s. Although Avery and his collaborators had identified DNA as the genetic material responsible for the transformation of bacteria in 1944, it was not until the early 1950s that the Hershey-Chase experiments provided a more direct demonstration of this role. Finally, the structural DNA double helix proposed by Watson and Crick in 1953 clearly created a structural frame work for the role of DNA as both information carrier and as a molecule that could undergo the necessary replication needed for daughter cells. Research continued by Kornberg and his colleagues in the mid-1950s emphasized the biochemistry and enzymology of DNA replication. At the same time, there was a growing interest in the role of RNA. The 1956 dis covery by David Davies and myself showed that polyadenylic acid and polyuridylic acid could form a double-helical RNA molecule but that it differed somewhat from DN A A large number of experiments were subsequendy carried out with synthetic polyribonucleotides which illustrated that RNA could form even more complicated helical structures in which the specificity of hydrogen bonding was the key element in determining the molecular conformation. Finally, in I960,1 could show that it was possible to make a hybrid helix.

Prebiotic Chemistry and Life's Origin

Prebiotic Chemistry and Life's Origin PDF Author: Michele Fiore
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
ISBN: 1788017498
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
This book provides a broad but in-depth analysis of the latest discoveries in prebiotic chemistry from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale.

Fitness of the Cosmos for Life

Fitness of the Cosmos for Life PDF Author: John D. Barrow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521871026
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
An interdisciplinary book for scientists interested in the origin and existence of life in our universe, first published in 2007.