The Snowball Earth hypothesis predicts global ice cover; however, previous descriptions of Cryogenian (720-635 Ma) glacial deposits are limited to continental margins and shallow marine basins.
Large meteorite impacts must have strongly affected the habitability of the early Earth. Rocks of the Archean Eon record at least 16 major impact events, involving bolides larger than 10 […]
The aqueous alteration of the oceanic lithosphere provides significant energy that impacts the synthesis and diversity of organic compounds, which are crucial for the deep carbon cycle and may have […]
How did specific useful protein sequences arise from simpler molecules at the origin of life? This seemingly needle-in-a-haystack problem has remarkably close resemblance to the old Protein Folding Problem, for […]
The Earth’s rotation has been decelerating throughout its history due to tidal dissipation, but the variation of the rate of this deceleration through time has not been established. We present […]
NASA-supported researchers have used a laboratory technique called directed evolution to create an RNA enzyme that is capable of carrying out RNA polymerase activity. In living cells, protein polymerases catalyze […]
The main sources of redox gradients supporting high-productivity life in the Europan and other icy ocean world oceans were proposed to be photolytically derived oxidants, such as reactive oxygen species […]
The kinetic resolution of racemic amino acids mediated by dipeptides and pyridoxal provides a prebiotically plausible route to enantioenriched proteinogenic amino acids.
UMass Amherst researchers have pushed forward the boundaries of biomedical engineering one hundredfold with a new method for DNA detection with unprecedented sensitivity.
Refractory oxygen bound to cations is a key component of the interior of rocky exoplanets. Its abundance controls planetary properties including metallic core fraction, core composition, and mantle and crust […]
