Related papers: Origin of Life
This thesis broadly concerns the origins of life problem, pursuing a joint approach that combines general philosophical/conceptual reflection on the problem along with more detailed and formal scientific modelling work oriented in the…
According to panspermia, life on Earth may have originated from life forms transported through space from elsewhere. These life forms could have passed through molecular clouds, where the process of methanogenesis could have provided enough…
Nature's many varied complex systems (including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society) are islands of order within the increasingly disordered universe. All organized systems are subject to physical, biological or cultural evolution,…
The fact that life has evolved in our universe constrains the laws of physics. The anthropic principle proposes that these constraints are sometimes very tight and can be used to explain in a sense the corresponding laws. Recently a…
Where is everybody? This phrase distills the foreboding of what has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox - the disquieting idea that, if extraterrestrial life is probable in the Universe, then why have we not encountered it? This conundrum…
Cosmologists wish to explain how our Universe, in all its complexity, could ever have come about. For that, we assess the number of states in our Universe now. This plays the role of entropy in thermodynamics of the Universe, and reveals…
How did it all begin? Although this question has undoubtedly lingered for as long as humans have walked the Earth, the answer still eludes us. Yet since my grandparents were born, scientists have been able to refine this question to a…
An interesting consequence of the modern cosmological paradigm is the spatial infinity of the universe. When coupled with naturalistic understanding of the origin of life and intelligence, which follows the basic tenets of astrobiology, and…
This document is the Special Issue of the First International Conference on the Evolution and Development of the Universe (EDU 2008). Please refer to the preface and introduction for more details on the contributions. Keywords:…
This review provides the necessary background from astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics to understand the cosmic origin of the chemical elements. It reflects the year 2009 state of the art in this extremely quickly developing…
The existence of a positive and possibly varying Lambda-term opens a much wider field of possibilities for the future of our Universe than it was usually thought before. Definite predictions may be made for finite (though very large)…
While modern physics and biology satisfactorily explain the passage from the Big Bang to the formation of Earth and the first cells to present-day life, respectively, the origins of biochemical life still remain an open question. Since…
In a multiverse context, determining the probability of being in our particular universe depends on estimating its overall habitability compared to other universes with different values of the fundamental constants. One of the most…
High-energy astrophysical events that cause galaxy-scale extinctions have been proposed as a way to explain or mollify the Fermi Paradox, by making the universe at earlier times more dangerous for evolving life, and reducing its present-day…
Life occurs in concentrated `Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology…
Our understanding of the evolutionary process has gone a long way since the publication, 150 years ago, of "On the origin of species" by Charles R. Darwin. The XXth Century witnessed great efforts to embrace replication, mutation, and…
The natural evolution of life seems to proceed through steps characterized by phases of relatively rapid changes, followed by longer, more stable periods. In the light of the string-theory derived physical scenario proposed in [1], we…
This paper makes a number of connections between life and various facets of genetic and evolutionary algorithms research. Specifically, it addresses the topics of adaptation, multiobjective optimization, decision making, deception, and…
Is life a common outcome of physical and chemical processes in the universe? Within our own solar system, a successful search for even primitive life, were it to have an origin independent from life on Earth, would dramatically advance a…
There is an intrinsic relationship between the molecular evolution in primordial period and the properties of genomes and proteomes of contemporary species. The genomic data may help us understand the driving force of evolution of life at…