Life on Earth is more than 3.5 billion years old, nearly as old as the age of the planet. Over this vast expanse of time, life and its biomolecules adapted […]
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Posted inAstropharmacy / Biotechnology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release
The Extremophile Protein That Revolutionized DNA Sequencing
This game-changing bacterium is called Thermus aquaticus, and it can withstand temperatures as high as 80°C. It’s an example of an extremophile – an organism capable of living in extreme […]
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release
Astrochemistry: The Mystery of Life’s Handedness Deepens
The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for […]
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Status Report
Autocatalytic Assembly Of A Chimeric Aminoacyl-RNA Synthetase Ribozyme
Autocatalytic reactions driving the self-assembly of biological polymers are important for the origin of life, yet few experimental examples of such reactions exist.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
Coenzyme-Protein Interactions Since Early Life
Recent findings in protein evolution and peptide prebiotic plausibility have been setting the stage for reconsidering the role of peptides in the early stages of life’s origin.
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
Metal Ions Turn On A Stereoselective Nonenzymatic Reduction Of Keto Acids By The Coenzyme NADH
Coenzymes are thought to have played a central role in the emergence of metabolism. However, studies in the context of prebiotic chemistry face the problem that outside of enzymes, many […]
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Status Report
Ancient Nitrogenases Are ATP Dependent
Life depends on a conserved set of chemical energy currencies that are relics of early biochemistry. One of these is ATP, a molecule that, when paired with a divalent metal […]
![An unrooted maximum-likelihood phylogenetic tree of the catalytic subunit (HydA) of [FeFe] hydrogenases and the hybrid hydrogenases. The tree was constructed based on 3,677 amino acid sequences using the LG + C20 + R + F model. The numbers at the branches indicate the aLRT (approximate likelihood ratio test) and ultrafast bootstrap (within bracket) support values, each with 1,000 replicates. The scale bar corresponds to the expected number of substitutions per site. Colored circles at the tip indicate sequences from eukaryotes and major archaeal groups. All other sequences are from bacteria. -- Cell](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/How-Archaea-The-Third.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release
How Archaea, The Third Form Of Earth Life, Makes Energy
An international scientific team has redefined our understanding of archaea, a microbial ancestor to humans from two billion years ago, by showing how they use hydrogen gas.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Impact events, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life, Panspermia, Press Release
Sulfur Molecules From Space Seeded Early Life On Earth
Important nutrients for the first living organisms on Earth may have come from space, according to new research from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Posted inBiochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release
Light Enables The Generation Of Non-canonical Amino Acids
UC Santa Barbara researchers are building out the repertoire of chemical reactions, using light. In a paper published in the journal Nature, chemistry professor Yang Yang and collaborators at the […]