Related papers: The Lipid-RNA World
Pattern formation in drying protein droplets continues to attract considerable research attention because it can be linked to specific protein-protein interactions. An extensive study of the drying evolution and the final crack patterns are…
Life can be viewed as a localized chemical system that sits on, or in the basin of attraction of, a metastable dynamical attractor state that remains out of equilibrium with the environment. Such a view of life allows that new living states…
Venus has become a target of astrobiological interest because it is physically accessible to direct exploration, unlike exoplanets. So far this interest has been motivated not by the explicit expectation of finding life but rather by a…
A phase field model which describes the formation of protein-RNA complexes subject to phase segregation is analyzed. A single protein, two RNA species, and two complexes are considered. Protein and RNA species are governed by coupled…
The origin of life on Earth via the spontaneous emergence of a protocell prior to Darwinian evolution remains a fundamental open question in physics and chemistry. Here, we develop a conceptual framework based on information theory and…
We study the prospects for life on planets with subsurface oceans, and find that a wide range of planets can exist in diverse habitats with ice envelopes of moderate thickness. We quantify the energy sources available to these worlds, the…
A lattice model of RNA denaturation which fully accounts for the excluded volume effects among nucleotides is proposed. A numerical study shows that interactions forming pseudoknots must be included in order to get a sharp continuous…
We propose a lattice model for RNA based on a self-interacting two-tolerant trail. Self-avoidance and elements of tertiary structure are taken into account. We investigate a simple version of the model in which the native state of RNA…
Many astrophysical problems, ranging from structure formation in cosmology to dynamics of elliptical galaxies, refer to slow processes of evolution of essentially collisionless self-gravitating systems. In order to determine the relevant…
CO is thought to be a vital building block for prebiotic molecules that are necessary for life. Thus, understanding where CO existed in a solid phase within the solar nebula is important for understanding the origin of life. We model the…
The origin of life must have been preceded by Darwin-like evolutionary dynamics that could propagate it. How did that adaptive dynamics arise? And from what prebiotic molecules? Using evolutionary invasion analysis, we develop a universal…
The Stratum Corneum (SC), the outermost layer of skin, comprises rigid corneocytes (keratin filled dead cells) in a specialized lipid matrix. The continuous lipid matrix provides the main barrier against uncontrolled water loss and invasion…
The emergence of replicases that can replicate themselves is a central issue in the origin of life. Recent experiments suggest that such replicases can be realized if an RNA polymerase ribozyme is divided into fragments short enough to be…
The origin and evolution of structure in the Universe is one of the major questions occupying astronomers today. An understanding of the Lyalpha absorbers seen in QSO spectra is an important part of this program since such absorbers can be…
Thanks to the Cassini-Huygens mission, Titan, the pale orange dot of Pioneer and Voyager encounters has been revealed to be a dynamic, hydrologically-shaped, organic-rich ocean world offering unparalleled opportunities to explore prebiotic…
High-redshift Lyman-alpha blobs (LABs) are an enigmatic class of objects that have been the subject of numerous observational and theoretical investigations. It is of particular interest to determine the dominant power sources for the…
A critical early stage for the origin of life on Earth may have involved the production of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) in a reducing, predominantly H$_2$ atmosphere. HCN is crucial for the origin of life as it is a possible precursor to several…
The last few years have seen a dramatic improvement in our understanding of the origin of Lyman alpha absorption systems. Hydrodynamic numerical simulations of cold dark matter dominated universes have shown that the many properties of the…
Entry of micro- or nano-sized objects into cells or vesicles made of lipid membranes occur in many processes such as entry of viruses in host cells, microplastics pollution, drug delivery or biomedical imaging. Here, we investigated the…
The evolution of complex cellular life involved two major transitions: the encapsulation of self-replicating genetic entities into cellular units and the aggregation of individual genes into a collectively replicating genome. In this paper,…