Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics Archives

Bold black letters illustrate amino acids that are deduced as early by the approach, while red letters indicate late additions to the alphabet according to the approach (C* implies possible prebiotic synthesis under specific and narrow conditions [4]). Regular black letters represent amino acids that have not been resolved as either early or late by the approach. LUCA: last universal common ancestor; LECA: last eukaryotic common ancestor; rTCA: tricarboxylic acid cycle. -- Trends in Genetics

Reconstructing Ancient Protein Alphabets: What Can We Truly Infer?

by Keith CowingAugust 8, 2026August 8, 2026

[Trends in Genetics] The canonical amino acid alphabet has remained remarkably stable since life’s early stages, yet the factors that shaped its emergence remain debated. Early views emphasized prebiotic availability […]

Network of reactions stratified as in Fig. 5. Inorganic substrates are shown at left. Network end products are shown at top (cofactors) and at bottom (nucleotides and amino acids indicated with one letter codes). Diamond-shaped nodes indicate chemical compounds; circular nodes indicate reactions. Reactions are shaded according to their classification in table S4: (i) (dark) The reaction has been experimentally shown to proceed catalyzed by transition metals or uncatalyzed, (ii) (light shading) the reaction is part of a pathway or reaction sequence from biological substrates to products catalyzed by transition metals, (iii) (intermediate shading) the reaction type (for example transamination) has been shown to proceed catalyzed by transition metals in water, or (iv) the nonenzymatic reaction is not yet experimentally demonstrated (white circles). -- Science

Origin & Evolution of Life

Two Origins Of Life

by Keith CowingAugust 6, 2026August 6, 2026

[Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf] How and where did the first forms of life arise? These are the main questions driving research at the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University […]

jsc2026e034370 (April 28, 2026) Credit: JPL-Caltech. Date Created:2026-04-28 larger image

Microbiology & Virology

Offworld Microbiology: Staphylococcus Aureus Biofilm Studies

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[NASA] Preflight image of Syto9 staining of Staphylococcus aureus biofilm as part of ODYSSEY, an investigation that evaluates biofilm formation and exchange of genetic material among two species of bacteria […]

Representation of the functional cycle (Funktionskreis) capturing the structural coherence between the living system and the assimilated environment, showing the analog coding processes operating in perception of external signals and in signal transduction, and the digital coding processes operating in the system's self-maintenance and reproduction. -- [BioSystems]

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life

Codepoietic Biological Evolution: From The Origin Of Life To Eukaryogenesis

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[BioSystems]. Evolution is an intrinsic property of autopoietic systems performing natural computation, which is based on an internal formal self-description representing the arrangement of digital and analog coding structures.

Schematic illustration of the non-spatial Hash Chemistry model (from [16], with modification). - -[q-bio.PE]

Origin & Evolution of Life

Hash Chemistry: Minimal Models for Evolutionary Growth of Complexity

by Keith CowingAugust 5, 2026August 5, 2026

[q-bio.PE] Hash Chemistry is a family of minimalistic evolutionary models in which a deterministic hash function assigns a scalar score to entities of arbitrary size, opening a combinatorially vast possibility […]

Images representative of Blood Falls discharge fan and sample types at the TGT

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine

Molecular Evidence For A Relict Marine Community In An Antarctic Dry Valleys Subglacial Brine-fed System

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[Nature] The McMurdo Dry Valleys contain a mosaic of specialized microbial habitats structured by strong physical and chemical gradients.

From top left clockwise: Spizellomyces punctatus, Acanthamoeba castellanii, Naegleria gruberi and Tetrahymena thermophila. Credit Sean Montgomery/Centro de Regulación Genómica

Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics

Life Speaks One Universal Language To Activate Genes. It Speaks Many More To Silence Them

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[Centre for Genomic Regulation] The signals that cells use to switch genes on have remained almost unchanged across two billion years of evolution, but the ones used to switch genes […]

System for the study of causal emergence in prebiotic chemistry.

Origin & Evolution of Life

Causal Architecture Dynamics Prior to Arrival of Self-replicators in a Model of Catalytic Networks Relevant to Origin-of-Life

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[q-bio.PE] Agents that exert causal power in the world are thought to be the product of selection among diverse replicators; what is the causal structure of a medium before replicators […]

Scan of the density µ (order parameter), with constant resource abundance r as control parameter. Standard deviation around the mean (coloured area) over independent simulations for a given volume |Ω|. Edges of growth and droplet stability (dotted and dashed lines). Scale ratio λ = 3, initial state with 2 seeds, cutoff time tmax = 5000. -- [physics.bio-ph]

Origin & Evolution of Life

Continuous Game of Life: Cell Emergence And Self-organization At The Edge Of Growth

by Keith CowingAugust 4, 2026August 4, 2026

[physics.bio-ph] Conway’s Game of Life shows that simple rules can generate a rich diversity of emerging structures. This cellular automaton has been translated to continuous space by Rafler (2011) in […]