Related papers: Alternative solvents for life: framework for evalu…
How do habitable environments arise and evolve within the context of their planetary systems? This is one fundamental question, and it can be addressed partly by identifying how planets in habitable zones obtain water. Historically,…
Quantum spin liquids are an exciting playground for exotic physical phenomena and emergent many-body quantum states. The realization and discovery of quantum spin liquid candidate materials and associated phenomena lie at the intersection…
A habitable zone of a star is defined as a range of orbits within which a rocky planet can support liquid water on its surface. The most intriguing question driving the search for habitable planets is whether they host life. But is the age…
It is investigated how biofriendly is the Milky Way for photosynthetic life. Special attention is dedicated to the role of the photobiological regime in the emergence and evolution of this kind of life in terrestrial planets. Following this…
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…
Is life most likely to emerge at the present cosmic time near a star like the Sun? We address this question by calculating the relative formation probability per unit time of habitable Earth-like planets within a fixed comoving volume of…
Carbon is an essential element for life on Earth, and the relative abundances of major carbon species (CO2, CO, and CH4) in the atmosphere exert fundamental controls on planetary climate and biogeochemistry. Here, we employed a theoretical…
The origin of life is often framed primarily as a chemical problem, yet life's defining feature is evolution. Advances in geochemistry, prebiotic chemistry, and molecular biology have produced diverse scenarios for the emergence of genomes,…
The search for extraterrestrial life has long been a primary focus of scientific exploration, driven by rapid advancements in technology and our understanding of the universe. The discovery of water on Mars has sparked significant interest,…
Since time immemorial life has been viewed as being fragile, yet over the past few decades it has been found that many extreme environments are inhabited by organisms known as extremophiles.Knowledge of their emergence, adaptability, and…
Standard definitions of habitability assume that life requires the presence of planetary gravity wells to stabilize liquid water and regulate surface temperature. Here the consequences of relaxing this assumption are evaluated. Temperature,…
What determines whether an organism or collective will survive under particular conditions? This question is asked across the life sciences when determining adaptive fit, developing efficacious treatments for diseases, and assessing the…
In the coming years and decades, advanced space- and ground-based observatories will allow an unprecedented opportunity to probe the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially habitable exoplanets for signatures of life. Life on Earth, through…
In this hypothesis article, we discuss the basic requirements of planetary environments where aerobe organisms can grow and survive, including atmospheric limitations of millimeter-to-meter-sized biological animal life based on physical…
The existence of intelligent, interstellar traveling and colonising life is a key assumption behind the Fermi Paradox. Until recently, detecting signs of life elsewhere has been so technically challenging as to seem almost impossible.…
We consider a model of liquid crystals, based on a nonlinear hyperbolic system of differential equations, that represents an inviscid version of the model proposed by Qian and Sheng. A new concept of dissipative solution is proposed, for…
Planetary surface habitability has so far been considered, in the main, upon a global scale. The increasing number of 3D modelling studies of (exo)planetary climate has highlighted the need for a more nuanced understanding of surface…
Although aqueous electrolytes are among the most important solutions, the molecular simulation of their intertwined properties of chemical potentials, solubility and activity coefficients has remained a challenging problem, and has…
Any search for present or past life beyond Earth should consider the initial processes and related environmental controls that might have led to its start. As on Earth, such an understanding lies well beyond how simple organic molecules…
Life on Earth emerged at the interface of the geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. This setting serves as our basis for how biological systems originate on rocky planets. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the chemical nature of…