Related papers: Origin of Information Encoding in Nucleic Acids th…
The thermodynamic dissipation theory for the origin of life asserts a thermodynamic imperative for the origin of life, suggesting that the fundamental molecules of life originated as self-organized molecular photon dissipative structures…
I describe the non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the photochemical mechanisms which may have been involved in the dissipative structuring, proliferation and evolution of the fundamental molecules at the origin of life from simpler and more…
The driving force behind the origin and evolution of life has been the thermodynamic imperative of increasing the entropy production of the biosphere through increasing the global solar photon dissipation rate. In the upper atmosphere of…
An ancient repertoire of UV absorbing pigments which survive today in the phylogenetically oldest extant photosynthetic organisms the cyanobacteria point to a direction in evolutionary adaptation of the pigments and their associated biota…
Understanding the thermodynamic function of life may shed light on its origin. Life, as are all irreversible processes, is contingent on entropy production. Entropy production is a measure of the rate of the tendency of Nature to explore…
To account for the origin of information accumulation in nature despite the entropy-increase law, we advocate a universal mechanism due to competition/selection of general composite entities, from simple to complex. To confirm its…
The most important thermodynamic work performed by life today is the dissipation of the solar photon flux into heat through organic pigments in water. From this thermodynamic perspective, biological evolution is thus just the dispersal of…
The sequence of nucleotide bases occurring in an organism's DNA is often regarded as a codescript for its construction. However, information in a DNA sequence can only be regarded as a codescript relative to an operational biochemical…
The origin of life can be understood mathematically to be the origin of information that can replicate. The likelihood that entropy spontaneously becomes information can be calculated from first principles, and depends exponentially on the…
Reduction of information entropy along with ever-increasing complexity are among the key signatures of living matter. Understanding the onset of such behavior in early prebiotic world is essential for solving the problem of origins of life.…
Networks of aromatic amino acid residues within microtubules, particularly those formed by tryptophan, may serve as pathways for optical information flow. Ultraviolet excitation dynamics in these networks are typically modeled with…
The emergence of self-replication and information transmission in life's origin remains unexplained despite extensive research on the topic. A hypothesis explaining the transition from a simple organic world to a complex RNA world is…
Networks of tryptophan -- an aromatic amino acid with strong fluorescent response -- are ubiquitous in biological systems, forming diverse architectures in transmembrane proteins, cytoskeletal filaments, sub-neuronal elements, photoreceptor…
We describe the photochemical dissipative structuring of fatty acids from CO and CO2 saturated water under the solar UVC and UVA photon potential prevalent at Earth's surface during the Archean. Their association into vesicles and their…
Even the simplest organisms are too complex to have spontaneously arisen fully-formed, yet precursors to first life must have emerged ab initio from their environment. A watershed event was the appearance of the first entity capable of…
The homochirality of the molecules of life has been a vexing problem with no generally accepted solution to date. Since a racemic mixture of chiral nucleotides frustrates the extension and replication of RNA and DNA, understanding the…
The emergence of life from inanimate matter presents a thermodynamic challenge: the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates a global trend towards disorder, yet life constitutes localized pockets of profound organization. This paper presents…
Over the last decade, there has been a growing body of experimental work showing that proteins devoid of aromatic and conjugated groups can absorb light in the near-UV beyond 300 nm and emit visible light. Understanding the origins of this…
In view of the critical behavior exhibited by a statistical model describing a one dimensional crystal containing isotopic impurities and the fact that for impurity mass parameter 3 times the host mass the critical temperature can attain…
Through in-depth thinking and reasoning about the conditions required for cells to maintain unchanged material distribution, it is concluded that life metabolic reactions require high information content. However, the self-replication of a…