Related papers: Viva Panspermia!
Apparent biodiversity on earth exists only if we compare different species separated from their environments. Meanwhile coexisting species have to be identical in terms of energetic interactions. Consider the biosphere as a network of…
An origin of Earth life on Mars would resolve significant inconsistencies between the inferred history of life and Earth's geologic history. Life as we know it utilizes amino acids, nucleic acids, and lipids for the metabolic,…
To counterbalance the views presented here by Suzana Moss de Oliveira, we explain here the truth: How men are oppressed by Mother Nature, who may have made an error inventing us, and by living women, who could get rid of most of us. Why do…
Life appears to have emerged relatively quickly on the Earth, a fact sometimes used to justify a high rate of spontaneous abiogenesis ($\lambda$) among Earth-like worlds. Conditioned upon a single datum - the time of earliest evidence for…
The origin of life and the detection of alien life have historically been treated as separate scientific research problems. However, they are not strictly independent. Here, we discuss the need for a better integration of the sciences of…
A simple stochastic model for evolution, based upon the need to pass a sequence of n critical steps (Carter 1983, Watson 2008) is applied to both terrestrial and extraterrestrial origins of life. In the former case, the time at which humans…
A simple model of species origin resulted from dynamic features of a population, solely, is developed. The model is based on the evolution optimality in space distribution, and the selection is gone over the mobility. Some biological issues…
We survey some of the philosophical challenges and pitfalls within origins research. Several of these challenges exhibit circularities, paradoxes, or anthropic biases. We present origins approaches in terms of three broad categories:…
Well protected human and laboratory animal populations with abundant resources are evolutionary unprecedented. Physical approach, which takes advantage of their extensively quantified mortality, establishes that its dominant fraction yields…
Earth is unusual in bearing life, and in having a large moon. A number of authors have suggested a possible connection between the two, e.g. through lunar stabilisation of the earth's obliquity, or through the effects of the oceanic tides.…
The results obtained in these experiments have revealed a remarkable resistance of extremophilic bacteria and archaea against different radiation sources (VUV, solar wind simulants, X rays) whenever protected by microsized carbonaceus…
Evolution of life on earth was governed, primarily, by natural selection, with major contribution of other evolutionary processes, such as neutral variation, exaptation, and gene duplication. However, for biological evolution to take off, a…
With unprecedented advances in genetic engineering we are starting to see progressively more original examples of synthetic life. As such organisms become more common it is desirable to be able to distinguish between natural and artificial…
Modifying the Redfield model of sexual reproduction and the Penna model of biological aging, we compare reproduction with and without recombination in age-structured populations. In contrast to Redfield and in agreement with Bernardes we…
In the spirit of the many recent simple models of evolution inspired by statistical physics, we put forward a simple model of the evolution of such models. Like its objects of study, it is (one supposes) in principle testable and capable of…
Mixing maternal and paternal genomes is the base of plant sexual reproduction, but some so-called 'haploid inducer lines' lead to the formation of seeds bearing well-developed embryos with solely the maternal genome. A recent study adds a…
The existence of life is one of the most fundamental problems of astrophysics. The intriguing existence of progressively complex and apparently improbable living beings should be a general tendency of life in the Universe. We are looking…
Recent discoveries imply that Early Mars was habitable for life-as-we-know-it; that Enceladus might be habitable; and that many stars have Earth-sized exoplanets whose insolation favors surface liquid water. These exciting discoveries make…
We are at a stage in our evolution where we do not yet know if we will ever communicate with intelligent beings that have evolved on other planets, yet we are intelligent and curious enough to wonder about this. We find ourselves wondering…
Astrobiology is usually defined as the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. As such it is inherently interdisciplinary and cannot help but engender a worldview infused by cosmic and evolutionary…