[Frontiers in Microbiology] On the north shore of Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA, naturally occurring tar seeps at Rozel Point provide an opportunity to study a petroleum-rich environment adjacent to […]
organic chemistry
![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](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Reconstructing.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics
Reconstructing Ancient Protein Alphabets: What Can We Truly Infer?
[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 […]
![Proposed reaction network for the radiolysis of PCN:N2 ice by 40 MeV 40Ar9+ ions at 10 K. The scheme summarizes the main fragmentation, radical recombination, isomerization, and nitrogen incorporation pathways inferred from the infrared identifications and kinetic analysis. The radicals shown in the "Primary fragmentation" box are representative examples of how reactive intermediates are inferred from the experimental results and do not constitute an exhaustive list of all fragments produced during irradiation. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Formation.png?resize=1200%2C706&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Formation Of Nitriles And Isonitriles By The Heavy-ion Irradiation Of Propionitrile In N2-rich Astrophysical Ices
[astro-ph.EP] Context. Nitriles are key nitrogen-bearing organic molecules in dense clouds, star-forming regions, and nitrogen-rich icy environments. Understanding their stability and chemical evolution under energetic processing is essential for understanding […]
Posted inComets and Asteroids
A JWST Study of Stardust. I. Infrared Spectroscopy of Comet 81P/Wild 2 and Overall Composition
[astro-ph.EP] We report observations of comet 81P/Wild 2, target of the Stardust sample return mission, on UT 2023 March 20 and 24 at a heliocentric distance (rH) of 1.85 au […]
Posted inUncategorized
NASA Viking Mission: A Perspective of the Labeled Release Biological Experiment on Mars
[Astrobiology (Journal)] The NASA Viking mission successfully landed three separate biological experiments on Mars in 1976 with a goal to detect microbial processes or materials in samples of the planet’s […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Liquid–liquid Phase Separation As A Driver Of Abiogenesis And Evolution
[Academia Molecular Biology and Genomics] The origin of life may have emerged through physical mechanisms that enable molecular organization and self-assembly.
![Schematic diagram of our spectral line stacking and matched filtering procedures. First, (a) shows relevant spectral regions of the (synthetic) observational data (black) and an initial spectral simulation (red). Each spectral window is then weighted based on the signal-to-noise ratio of each region to create a velocity stack of all relevant molecular rotational transitions (b). Finally, the stacked simulation is used as a matched filter and is cross-correlated with the stacked data to visualize the statistical significance of a given detection (c). -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Exploring-the-Limits.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Exploring the Limits of Spectral Line Stacking in Spectral Line Data and Application Toward the Detection of Bulk 13C Enrichment of Aromatics in TMC-1
[astro-ph.GA] The formation history of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the interstellar medium remains a topic of active debate, with proposed mechanisms ranging from high-temperature stellar ejecta processes to low-temperature […]
![Helicity asymmetries of the primordial (left panel) and late-time (right panel) density fields for parity asymmetric (blue curves) and symmetric (red curves) simulations. The shaded regions indicate the standard deviation (1σ) of the ensemble-average. The red markers highlight the asymmetries exceeding a statistical significance of 3σ. - [astro-ph.CO]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Probing.png?resize=1200%2C718&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
Probing Primordial Chirality in the Matter Distribution
[astro-ph.CO] Whether parity symmetry was violated in the early universe remains one of the fundamental open questions in cosmology. If so, it may leave an intrinsic handedness in the large-scale […]
Posted inOrigin & Evolution of Life
Oil Droplets Remodel Themselves, And Swallow Their Surroundings – Like Living Cells
[New York University] NYU researchers have made microscopic oil droplets in water do something usually reserved for living cells: change shape in complex, controllable ways, and even engulf their surroundings.
![Three-dimensional thermal phase architecture of the local ISM. (a) Three-dimensional rendering of the cold (blue) and unstable (yellow) isosurfaces, with warm gas shown transparent. The transparent warm volume traces WNM together with unmodelled hot ionised gas, which carries negligible mass (Methods). An interactive version is available at https://sb2580.github.io/phases 3d/. (b) Slices through the Galactic plane (𝑧 = 0) of gas density 𝑛 (left), FUV radiation intensity 𝐼UV (middle), and phase classification (right). Concentric circles mark heliocentric radii of 150, 300, and 450 pc. -- [astro-ph.GA]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/The-first-three.png?resize=1200%2C719&ssl=1)
Posted inAstrochemistry
The First Three-dimensional Map Of Thermal Phases In The Local Interstellar Medium
[astro-ph.GA] The thermal state of interstellar gas controls whether it remains warm and diffuse or cools into dense clouds. Twentyone centimetre observations have established a statistical picture of neutral-gas phases, […]