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The weather layers of the gas giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn, comprise the shallow atmospheric layers that are influenced energetically by a combination of incoming solar radiation and localised latent heating of condensates, as well as…
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…
We use a simple organism lifecycle model to explore the viability of an atmospheric habitable zone (AHZ), with temperatures that could support Earth-centric life, which sits above an environment that does not support life. To illustrate our…
A thermophysical model was developed to test the viability of 57 candidate hollow-forming volatiles within the hollow-formation model framework of Blewett et al. (2013). We find that the thermophysical properties of elemental sulfur (S)…
Terrestrial planets in temperate orbits around very low mass stars are likely to have evolved in a very different way than solar system planets, and in particular Earth. However, because these are the first planets that are and will be…
With high-resolution spectroscopy we can study exoplanet atmospheres and learn about their chemical composition, temperature profiles, and presence of clouds and winds, mainly in hot, giant planets. State-of-the-art instrumentation is…
Making use of a simplified model for protein folding, it can be shown that conformations which are particularly stable when their energy is minimized with respect to amino acid sequence (in the sense that they display a large energy gap to…
Current models indicate that Venus may have been habitable. Complex life may have evolved on the highly irradiated Venus, and transferred to Earth on asteroids. This model fits the pattern of pulses of highly developed life appearing,…
With the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets and a potentially huge number of Earth-like planets waiting to be discovered, the conditions for their habitability have become a focal point in exoplanetary research. The classical picture of…
Previous self-assembly experiments on a model icosahedral plant virus have shown that, under physiological conditions, capsid proteins initially bind to the genome through an en masse mechanism and form nucleoprotein complexes in a…
The atmosphere of a transiting planet shields the stellar radiation providing us with a powerful method to estimate its size and density. In particular, because of their high ionization energy, atoms with high atomic number (Z) absorb…
Neptune remains a mysterious world that deserves further exploration and is a high-priority objective for a future planetary mission in order to better understand the formation and evolution of ice giant planets. We have developed a coupled…
The low luminosity of Uranus is a long-standing challenge in planetary science. Simple adiabatic models are inconsistent with the measured luminosity, which indicates that Uranus is non-adiabatic because it has thermal boundary layers…
Understanding the adsorption and physical characteristics of supported lipid membranes is crucial for their effective use as model cell membranes. Their morphological and thermodynamic properties at the nanoscale have traditionally been…
We present results of \textit{ab initio} molecular dynamics study of a structural transformation occurring in hot liquid sulfur under high pressure, which corresponds to the chain-breakage phenomenon recently observed experimentally by Liu…
Photochemical hazes are expected to form and significantly contribute to the chemical and radiative balance of exoplanets with relatively moderate temperatures, possibly in the habitable zone of their host star. In the presence of humidity,…
We study by Molecular Dynamics simulation a dense one-component system of particles confined on a spherical substrate. We more specifically investigate the evolution of the structural and dynamical properties of the system when changing the…
The supramolecular assembly of lipids into bilayer membranes is essential for cellular structure and function. However, the impact of lipid structural variations such as acyl chain length, degree of unsaturation, and headgroup type on…
Molecular clouds (MCs) are stellar nurseries, however, formation of stars within MCs depends on the ambient physical conditions. MCs, over a free-fall time are exposed to numerous dynamical phenomena, of which, the interaction with a thin,…
The self-assembly of photonic nanostructures in insects involves chitin, proteins, and lipids. While synthetic photonic systems have been extensively studied, current lipid-based self-assembly systems are limited in periodicity to…