The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth

The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth

Author: Eric Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 703

ISBN-13: 1107121884

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Uniting the foundations of physics and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary and integrative book explores life as a planetary process.


Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life

Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of Life

Author: Anna Neubeck

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-01-03

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3030810399

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This book presents an overview of current views on the origin of life and its earliest evolution. Each chapter describes key processes, environments and transition on the long road from geochemistry and astrochemistry to biochemistry and finally to the ancestors of today ́s organisms. This book combines the bottom-up and the top-down approaches to life including the origin of key chemical and structural features of living cells and the nature of abiotic factors that shaped these features in primordial environments. The book provides an overview of the topic as well as its state of the art for graduate students and newcomers to the field. It also serves as a reference for researchers in origins of life on Earth and beyond.


The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth

The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth

Author: Eric Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-03-31

Total Pages: 703

ISBN-13: 131648985X

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Uniting the conceptual foundations of the physical sciences and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary book explores the origin of life as a planetary process. Combining geology, geochemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, evolution and statistical physics to create an inclusive picture of the living state, the authors develop the argument that the emergence of life was a necessary cascade of non-equilibrium phase transitions that opened new channels for chemical energy flow on Earth. This full colour and logically structured book introduces the main areas of significance and provides a well-ordered and accessible introduction to multiple literatures outside the confines of disciplinary specializations, as well as including an extensive bibliography to provide context and further reading. For researchers, professionals entering the field or specialists looking for a coherent overview, this text brings together diverse perspectives to form a unified picture of the origin of life and the ongoing organization of the biosphere.


Towards Revealing the Origin of Life

Towards Revealing the Origin of Life

Author: Kenji Ikehara

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-06-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 3030710874

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The origin of life has been investigated by many researchers from various research fields, such as Geology, Geochemistry, Physics, Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Astronomy and so on. Nevertheless, the origin of life remains unsolved. One of the reasons for this could be attributed to the different approaches that researchers have used to understand the events that happened on the primitive Earth. The origins of the main three members of the fundamental life system, as gene, genetic code and protein, could be only separately understood with these approaches. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the origins of gene, the genetic code, tRNA, metabolism, cell structure and protein not separately but comprehensively under a common concept in order to understand the origin of life, because the six members are intimately related to each other. In this monograph, the author offers a comprehensive hypothesis to explain the origin of life under a common concept. At the same time, the author offers the [GADV] hypothesis contrasting it with other current hypotheses and discusses the results of analyses of genes/proteins and the experimental data available in the exploration of the current knowledge in the field. This book is of interest for science students, researchers and the general public interested in the origin of life.


Echoes of Life

Echoes of Life

Author: Susan M. Gaines

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0195176197

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In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules that he had extracted from ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll--presumably from plants that had lived and died millions of years in the past. It was another twenty-five years before this insight was developed and the term "biomarker" coined to describe fossil molecules whose molecular structures could reveal the presence of otherwise elusive organisms and processes.Echoes of Life is the story of these molecules and how they are illuminating the history of the earth and its life. It is also the story of how a few maverick organic chemists and geologists defied the dictates of their disciplines and--at a time when the natural sciences were fragmenting into ever-more-specialized sub-disciplines--reunited chemistry, biology and geology in a common endeavor. The rare combination of rigorous science and literary style--woven into a historic narrative that moves naturally from the simple to the complex--make Echoes of Life a book to be read for pleasure and contemplation, as well as education.


Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life

Cosmochemistry and the Origin of Life

Author: Cyril Ponnamperuma

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 9400970722

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For the first time in human history, developments in many branches of science provide us with an opportunity of formula ting a comprehensive picture of the universe from its beginning to the present time. It is an awesome reflection that the carbon in our bodies is the very carbon which was generated during the birth of a star. There is a perceptible continuum through the billions of years which can be revealed by the study of chemistry. Studies in nucleosynthesis have related the origin of the elements to the life history of the stars. The chemical elements we find on earth, HYdrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen, were created in astronomical processes that took place in the past, and these elements are not spread throughout space in the form of stars and galaxies. Radioastronomers have discovered a vast array of organic molecules in the interstellar medium which have a bearing on prebiological chemical processes. Many of the molecules found so far contain the four elements, C, N, 0, H. Except for the chem ically unreactive He, these four elements are the most abundant in the galaxy. The origin of polyatomic interstellar molecules is an unresolved problem. While we can explain the formation of some diatomic molecules as due to two atom collisions, it is much more difficult to form polyatomic molecules by collisions between diatomic molecules and atoms. There may be other produc tion mechanisms at work such as reactions taking place on the surface of interstellar dust grains.


The Geochemical Origin of Microbes

The Geochemical Origin of Microbes

Author: William F. Martin

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2024-06-27

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1003859526

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This is a textbook covering the transition from energy releasing reactions on the early Earth to energy releasing reactions that fueled growth in the first microbial cells. It is for teachers and college students with an interest in microbiology, geosciences, biochemistry, evolution, or all of the above. The scope of the book is a quantum departure from existing “origin of life” books in that it starts with basic chemistry and links energy-releasing geochemical processes to the reactions of microbial metabolism. The text reaches across disciplines, providing students of the geosciences an origins/biology interface and bringing a geochemistry/origins interface to students of microbiology and evolution. Beginning with physical chemistry and transitioning across metabolic networks into microbiology, the timeline documents chemical events and organizational states in hydrothermal vents – the only environments known that bridge the gap between spontaneous chemical reactions that we can still observe in nature today and the physiology of microbes that live from H2, CO2, ammonia, phosphorus, inorganic salts and water. Life is a chemical reaction. What it is and how it arose are two sides of the same coin. Key Features Provides clear connections between geochemical reactions and microbial metabolism Focuses on chemical mechanisms and transition metals Richly illustrated with color figures explaining reactions and processes Covers the origin of the Earth, the origin of metabolism, the origin of protein synthesis and genetic information as well as the escape into the wild of the first free-living cells: Bacteria and Archaea