Chemical Evolution: Physics of the Origin and Evolution of Life
Leading researchers in the area of the origin and evolution of life in the universe contributed to Chemical Evolution: Physics of the Origin and Evolution of Life. This volume provides a review of this interdisciplinary field. In 35 chapters many aspects of the origin of life are discussed by 90 authors, with particular emphasis on the early paleontological record: physical, chemical, biological, and informational aspects of life's origin, instrumentation in exobiology and system exploration;...
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Leading researchers in the area of the origin and evolution of life in the universe contributed to Chemical Evolution: Physics of the Origin and Evolution of Life. This volume provides a review of this interdisciplinary field. In 35 chapters many aspects of the origin of life are discussed by 90 authors, with particular emphasis on the early paleontological record: physical, chemical, biological, and informational aspects of life's origin, instrumentation in exobiology and system exploration; the search for habitable planets and extraterrestrial intelligent radio signals. This book contains the proceedings of the Fourth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution that took place in September 1995, in which scientists from a wide geographical distribution joined in a Memorial to Cyril Ponnamperuma, who was a pioneer in the field of chemical evolution, the origin of life, and exobiology, and also initiated the Trieste Conferences on Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life. This fourth Conference was therefore dedicated to his memory. Audience: Graduate students and researchers in the many areas of basic, earth, and life sciences that contribute to the study of chemical evolution and the origin of life. Booknews The proceedings from the September 1995 conference are, literally, out of this world. A collection of 35 papers presented by 90 scientific researchers investigating the origin and evolution of life in the universe present research reviews addressing the physical, chemical, biological, and informational aspects of life's origin, instrumentation in exobiology and system exploration, and the search for habitable planets and extraterrestrial intelligent radio signals. The essays regarding the oxygen and rapid evolution of life on Mars, and strategies for the detection of bioorganic compounds on Mars take on new dimensions given this year's most publicized scientific discoverycompounds seen in Mar's rocks that indicate life. Includes a special memorial section devoted to Cyril Ponnamperuma, the conference's founder. Includes illustrations. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Group photographPrefaceCosmic evolution, life and man3Experimental retracement of terrestrial origin of an excitable cell: Was it predictable?21Cosmology: The Universe in Evolution35From cosmic formation of chiral bioorganics in interstellar dust to comet seeds of life's origins: Are 10[superscript 25] chances enough?51Strategies for the search of life in the universe73Age of the Isua supracrustal sequence of West Greenland: A possible repository for early life87Clays as natural catalyst in prebiotic processes97Role of transient and stable molecules in chemical evolution107Lightning associated to Archean volcanic ash-gas clouds123Evolutionary, kinetic and thermodynamic aspects on the bioenergetics of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP)145Mineral metal sulphur clusters as a testbed for studies of evolutionary continuity151Thermal peptides as the initial genetic system157Origin of nucleic acids167Origin of fatty acids171Oxygen and the rapid evolution of life on Mars177First steps in eukaryogenesis: Physical phenomena in the origin and evolution of chromosome structure185Biological aspects of the origin of life: Open questions in eukaryogenesis197A putative living fossil of the RNA world is likely to be of recent origin215Thermodynamic nature of the biological evolution: the model and the reality221Boltzmann dynamics on the primitive earth about 3.8 billion years ago231Thermodynamic and kinetic properties of prebiological open systems239On the determination of the physical origin of homochirality in life251Possible role of phosphoryl group excitation in chemical evolution269Basic models of chemical evolution of life: The minimum evolving system279Ab initio calculation of molecular energies including parity violating interactions287Prebiotic chemical evolution and the Darwinian Revolution299La Grande Galerie de l'Evolution of Paris: The only museum in the world entirely devoted to biological evolution305New approaches in mathematical biology: Information theory and molecular machines313Information-processing genes: Molecular biology in the computational paradigm323Progress in searches for extraterrestrial intelligent radio signals335SETI from the moon. A case for a XXIst century SETI-dedicated lunar farside crater343In situ exploration of Titan and cometary nucleus: implication for planetary exobiology357Looking for the homochiral signature of life: the SETH CigarStrategy for the detection of bioorganic compounds on Mars381Martian soil analysis389Excerpts from letters read at the Conference399Speakers from scientific academies and foundations of which Cyril Ponnamperuma was a member402Index407
