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origins of life

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Illustration of a snail climbing on a mirror, showing the opposite spiral of its shell in the reflection.
origins of life

Magnetism May Have Given Life Its Molecular Asymmetry

By Yasemin Saplakoglu
September 6, 2023
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The preferred “handedness” of biomolecules could have emerged from biased interactions between electrons and magnetic surfaces, new research suggests.

Legos coming together to make a person.
origins of life

A New Idea for How to Assemble Life

By Philip Ball
May 4, 2023
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If we want to understand complex constructions, such as ourselves, assembly theory says we must account for the entire history of how such entities came to be.

Colored micrograph of the new Loki Asgard archaeon that was reported in December 2022.
microbes

Primitive Asgard Cells Show Life on the Brink of Complexity

By Joshua Sokol
April 11, 2023
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As researchers race to cultivate more of the intriguing cells from the deep seafloor, the few cells now growing in labs are giving us our best glimpses of the forerunners of all complex life.

Nikta Fakhri looks at a test tube.
Q&A

Starfish Whisperer Develops a Physical Language of Life

By Charlie Wood
January 11, 2023
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Nikta Fakhri is adapting and extending concepts from physics to describe how tiny biological components give rise to living organisms.

Illustration of asteroids in space that are interconnected into a structure like that of the amino acid glycine.
explainers

Inside Ancient Asteroids, Gamma Rays Made Building Blocks of Life

By John Rennie +1 authors
Allison Parshall
January 4, 2023
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A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth.

2022 in Review

The Year in Biology

By John Rennie
December 21, 2022
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Momentum for new ideas in Alzheimer’s research joined advances in neuroscience, developmental biology and origin-of-life studies to make 2022 a memorable year of biological insights.

Nick Lane of University College London in an exhibit hall at the Grant Museum of Zoology.
Q&A

A Biochemist’s View of Life’s Origin Reframes Cancer and Aging

By Viviane Callier
August 8, 2022
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The biochemist Nick Lane thinks life first evolved in hydrothermal vents where precursors of metabolism appeared before genetic information. His ideas could lead us to think differently about aging and cancer.

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
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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
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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.


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