Related papers: A Prerequisite for Life
Aqueous chemistry within carbonaceous planetesimals is promising for synthesizing prebiotic organic matter essential to all life. Meteorites derived from these planetesimals delivered these life building blocks to the early Earth,…
Enzymes are on the front lines of evolution. All living organisms rely on highly efficient, specific enzymes for growth, sustenance, and reproduction; and many diseases are a consequence of a mutation on an enzyme that affects its catalytic…
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…
A model to describe the arising of new structures in an initial homogeneous biological system is proposed. The essay is motivated by the intention to work on a non-equilibrium situation grouping together several mechanisms and processes as:…
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…
Compartments are ubiquitous throughout biology, yet their importance stretches back to the origin of cells. In the context of origin of life, we assume that a protocell, a compartment enclosing functional components, requires $N$ components…
The tendency of amphiphilic molecules to form micelles in aqueous solution is a consequence of the hydrophobic effect. The fundamental difference between micelle assembly and macroscopic phase separation is the stoichiometric constraint…
(English) In this lecture I discuss recent progress in the understanding of the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks that resemble our Solar system during the first ten million years. At the verge of planet formation, strong…
A detailed understanding of the interface between living cells and substrate materials is of rising importance in many fields of medicine, biology and biotechnology. Cells at interfaces often form epithelia. The physical barrier that they…
The selection of a single molecular handedness, or homochirality across all living matter, is a mystery in the origin of life. Frank's seminal model showed in the fifties how chiral symmetry breaking can occur in non-equilibrium chemical…
Physical mechanism for the creation of solar spicules is proposed with three stages of their life cycle. It is assumed that at stage-I, the density hump is formed locally in the xy-plane in lower chromosphere in the presence of temperature…
Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures: an essential ingredient of biology and a desired route to complex organization. At equilibrium, the structure is encoded through specific interactions,…
Phase transitions, such as the freezing of water and the magnetisation of a ferromagnet upon lowering the ambient temperature, are familiar physical phenomena. Interestingly, such a collective change of behaviour at a phase transition is…
The biological cell exhibits a fantastic range of behaviors, but ultimately these are governed by a handful of physical and chemical principles. Here we explore simple theory, known for decades and based on the simple thermodynamics of…
Understanding the complex self-assembly of biomacromolecules is a major outstanding question. Microtubules are one example of a biopolymer that possesses characteristics quite distinct from standard synthetic polymers that are derived from…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a…
Both abiotic self-organization and biological mechanisms have been put forward as the origin of a number of geological patterns. It is important to comprehend the formation mechanisms of such structures both to understand geological…
Large and complex molecules are building blocks for life. We compute probabilities for their formation from an average non-equilibrium model. As the distance from thermodynamic equilibrium is increased in this model, so too are the chances…
For prebiotic chemistry to succeed in producing a starting metastable, autocatalytic and reproducing system subject to evolutionary selection it must satisfy at least two apparently contradictory requirements: Because such systems are rare,…