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origins of life

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

Illustration that depicts two types of simple molecules reacting in water on the early Earth.
origins of life

New Clues to Chemical Origins of Metabolism at Dawn of Life

By John Rennie
October 12, 2020
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The ingredients for reactions ancestral to metabolism could have formed very easily in the primordial soup, new work suggests.

Side-by-side images of a rabbit, bees in a hive, and a tornado.
information theory

What Is an Individual? Biology Seeks Clues in Information Theory.

By Jordana Cepelewicz
July 16, 2020
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To recognize strange extraterrestrial life and solve biological mysteries on this planet, scientists are searching for an objective definition for life’s basic units.

A DNA double helix being struck by a cosmic ray.
Abstractions blog

Cosmic Rays May Explain Life’s Bias for Right-Handed DNA

By Charlie Wood
June 29, 2020
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Cosmic rays may have given right-handed genetic helixes an evolutionary edge at the beginning of life’s history.

Close-up of water swirling among rocks at the sea’s edge.
microbiology

Inside Deep Undersea Rocks, Life Thrives Without the Sun

By Jordana Cepelewicz
May 13, 2020
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Newly discovered worlds of microbes far beneath the ocean floor, inside old basaltic rocks, could point to a greater likelihood of life elsewhere in the universe.

3D illustration of a complex atomic structure.
Abstractions blog

Origin-of-Life Study Points to Chemical Chimeras, Not RNA

By Jordana Cepelewicz
September 16, 2019
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Origin-of-life researchers have usually studied the potential of pure starting materials, but messy mixtures of chemicals may kick-start life more effectively.


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