[biorxiv.org] The Eboliang Hu saline lakes in the hyper-arid Qaidam Basin is a high-altitude, weakly acidic hypersaline system with strong environmental gradients and limited nitrogen availability.
evolution
PCE3 Seminar: Directed evolution of RNA for self-replication
Edoardo Gianni Investigator Scientist MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology “Directed evolution of RNA for self-replication” Tuesday, Sept 15th 12 p.m. EDT/9 a.m. PDT More information & registration: https://www.prebioticchem.org/seminar-series-signup Edoardo Gianni […]
LIFE NASA RCN Seminar Series: Cobamide biosynthesis in the last universal common ancestor?
Time: September 15th, 8 AM PDT/11 AM EDT JOIN THE WEBINAR VIA ZOOM Val Karavaeva is a PhD student at the Genome Evolution and Ecology Group (GEEG) at the University […]
![A symbiotic scenario for co-evolution of the ribosome and the replicase. Two variations of the scenario are depicted, whereby the peptidyltransferase center (PTC) and the replicase (REP) ribozymes are encoded by distinct (A) or the same (B) RNA molecule. The figure depicts three major stages of cellular evolution from the primordial RNA world (left) to the intermediate RNA-protein world (center) and the last universal cellular ancestor (LUCA, right). The major events occurring during each stage are briefly described in the corresponding information boxes at the bottom of the figure. -- [q-bio.PE]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-selfish.png?resize=1200%2C712&ssl=1)
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
The Selfish Ribosome
[q-bio.PE]. The ribosome is responsible for protein synthesis in all cells, and is the largest energy consumer in the cell.
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Crossing The Functional Desert: Cascade-Driven Assembly And Feasibility Transitions In Early Life
[physics.soc-ph] The origin of life poses a problem of combinatorial feasibility: How can temporally supported functional organization arise in exponentially branching assembly spaces when unguided exploration behaves as a memoryless […]
![The origin of life is the first, arguably, the most important and also the most enigmatic major transition in evolution (MTE). [q-bio.PE]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/The-first.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
The First Major Transition: Origin Of Life From A Multilevel Selection Perspective
[q-bio.PE] As all MTE, the transition at the origin of life can be constructively addressed only within the conceptual framework of multilevel selection. The two levels of selection relevant for […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
RNA Droplets May Have Helped Start life on Earth
[University at Buffalo] It’s one of the origins of life’s chicken-or-the-egg problems: How could RNA have helped give rise to the first cells before there were cells to contain them?
![Selection on a collective trait drives the origin of heredity. (A) Intracellular 5 competition drives the dominance of the red plasmid when fluorescence is enforced (left-hand panel) while poor inheritance and carriage costs purge the ancestral plasmid population entirely when no selective gate is used (right-hand panel). Coloured zones show the proportion of the population in each colour class through 21 cycles: red only, green only, yellow (red plus green), white (cells without fluorescence). -- [biorxiv.org]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Forging.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
Forging An Evolutionary Individual From Separate Replicators
[biorxiv.org] A central puzzle in the evolution of individuality is the origin of heredity. Egalitarian transitions integrate formerly independent replicators into a higher-level individual, but this requires the collective to […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology
Emergence Of Biosignatures On Earth And Implications For Life Detection
[PNAS] Earth’s organic chemical evolution (OCE) from abiotic to prebiotic to biotic provides critical insights that may have implications for how we interpret observations made by life-detection planetary missions.
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Re-evaluating Boundary Conditions Of The Concept of Life
[Proceedings IAU] It is argued that a central challenge to the task of developing a foundational model for life lies within the implicit propositions of the Western scientific view.