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origins of life

an illustration of various objects (a chair, a rocket, a cell phone, etc.) as well as biological objects such as a DNA double-helix and microbe, all against a lime green background
The Joy of Why

What Is Life?

By Steven Strogatz
June 15, 2022
Read Later

Without a good definition of life, how do we look for it on alien planets? Steven Strogatz speaks with Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and astrobiologist, and Sheref Mansy, a chemist, to learn more.

Illustration of icons that relate to life’s origins: a volcano, molecules, a crab, fish, DNA and more.
The Joy of Why

How Could Life Evolve From Cyanide?

By Steven Strogatz
June 1, 2022
Read Later

How did life arise on Earth? Steven Strogatz speaks with the Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jack Szostak and Betül Kaçar, a paleogeneticist and astrobiologist, to explore our best understanding of how we all got here.

Colorized transmission electron micrograph of a polyribosome.
origins of life

Life’s First Peptides May Have Grown on RNA Strands

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
May 24, 2022
Read Later

RNA and peptides coevolving in the primordial world might have jointly served as a precursor to the modern ribosome.

Illustration of a network of self-replicating RNA molecules evolving and getting more complex.
origins of life

In Test Tubes, RNA Molecules Evolve Into a Tiny Ecosystem

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
May 5, 2022
Read Later

When researchers gave a genetic molecule the ability to replicate, it evolved over time into a complex network of “hosts” and “parasites” that both competed and cooperated to survive.

The Joy of Why

Deep Curiosity Inspires The Joy of Why Podcast

By Steven Strogatz
March 17, 2022
Read Later

The noted mathematician and author Steven Strogatz explains how the conversations with experts in his new Quanta Magazine podcast address his lifelong fascination with timeless mysteries.

An illustration of a polyglycine molecule among the constellations.
origins of life

Peptides on Stardust May Have Provided a Shortcut to Life

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
March 8, 2022
Read Later

The discovery that short peptides can form spontaneously on cosmic dust hints at more of a role for them in the earliest stages of life’s origin, on Earth or elsewhere.

climate science

Solving the Faint-Sun Paradox

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
January 27, 2022
Read Later

We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.

Close-up video of bubbles in a lava lamp moving and splitting under the influence of heat.
origins of life

At the Dawn of Life, Heat May Have Driven Cell Division

By Carrie Arnold
November 23, 2021
Read Later

A mathematical model shows how a thermodynamic mechanism could have made protocells split in two.

Artistic representation of water radiolysis supporting life below ground.
microbiology

Radioactivity May Fuel Life Deep Underground and Inside Other Worlds

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 24, 2021
Read Later

New work suggests that the radiolytic splitting of water supports giant subsurface ecosystems of life on Earth — and could do it elsewhere, too.


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