[UC Riverside] Scientists have helped solve a longstanding mystery about how Earth remained habitable after oxygen first accumulated in its atmosphere more than 2 billion years ago, providing evidence that […]
orign of life
Posted inAstrobiology (general), NASA Astrobiology Program, Status Report
The Origin, Extension, and Future of the “NASA Definition” of Life
The “NASA definition” enjoys broad popularity among scientists, particularly in the astrobiology community: life is “a self-sustained chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
Posted inAstrochemistry, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
A Formal Physical Framework for the Origin of Life: Dissipation-Driven Selection of Evolving Replicators
The emergence of life from inanimate matter presents a thermodynamic challenge: the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates a global trend towards disorder, yet life constitutes localized pockets of profound organization.
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Microbiology & Virology, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
Did Iron Suppress Eukaryote Emergence and Early Radiation?
The last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) is widely thought to have been an oxygen-respiring organism, arising through endosymbiosis when a free-living bacterium became the mitochondrion.
Posted inGenomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report
Protocell Formation On Micrometeorites
We report on the formation of membranous protocells by self-assembly of lipids on micrometeorites, the extraterrestrial particles that have been continuously reaching the surface of the Earth ever since its […]