I had the pleasure of reporting and writing the Many Worlds column -- sponsored by NASA's NExSS initiative and the Lunar & Planetary Institute -- for more than seven years, but the run came to an end in October. Now an archive of the more than 400 columns is easily available at http://www.manyworlds.space. The stories …
Clues About Conditions on Early Earth As Life Was Emerging
What set the stage for the emergence of life on early Earth? There will never be a single answer to that question, but there are many partial answers related to the global forces at play during that period. Two of those globe-shaping dynamics are the rise of the magnetic fields that protected Earth from hazardous …
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Could High-Energy Radiation Have Played an Important Role in Getting Earth Ready For Life?
A version of this article first appeared in Astrobiology Magazine, http://www.astrobio.net. Life on early Earth seems to have begun with a paradox: while life needs water as a solvent, the essential chemical backbones of early life-forming molecules fall apart in water. Our universal solvent, it turns out, can be extremely corrosive. Some have pointed to …
Could High-Energy Radiation Have Played an Important Role in Getting Earth Ready For Life?
A version of this article first appeared in Astrobiology Magazine, http://www.astrobio.net. Life on early Earth seems to have begun with a paradox: while life needs water as a solvent, the essential chemical backbones of early life-forming molecules fall apart in water. Our universal solvent, it turns out, can be extremely corrosive. Some have pointed to …
Messy Chemistry: A New Way to Approach the Origins of Life
More than a half century ago, Stanley Miller and Harold Urey famously put water and gases believed to make up the atmosphere of early Earth into a flask with water, sparked the mix with an electric charge, and produced amino acids and other chemical building blocks of life. The experiment was hailed as a ground-breaking …
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Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak: Exoplanets Gave The Origin of Life Field a Huge Boost
Sometimes tectonic shifts in scientific disciplines occur because of discoveries and advances in the field. But sometimes they occur for reasons entirely outside the field itself. Such appears to be case with origins-of-life studies. Nobel laureate Jack Szostak was recently in Tokyo to participate in a workshop at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the …
Nobel Laureate Jack Szostak: Exoplanets Gave The Origin of Life Field a Huge Boost
Sometimes tectonic shifts in scientific disciplines occur because of discoveries and advances in the field. But sometimes they occur for reasons entirely outside the field itself. Such appears to be case with origins-of-life studies. Nobel laureate Jack Szostak was recently in Tokyo to participate in a workshop at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the …
Messy Chemistry, Evolving Rocks, and the Origin of Life
Noted synthetic life researcher Steven Benner of Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (FfAME) is fond of pointing out that gooey tars are the end product of too many experiments in his field. His widely-held view is that the tars, made out of chemicals known to be important in the origin of life, are nonetheless …
Continue reading "Messy Chemistry, Evolving Rocks, and the Origin of Life"
Messy Chemistry, Evolving Rocks, and the Origin of Life
Noted synthetic life researcher Steven Benner of Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is fond of pointing out that gooey tars are the end product of too many experiments in his field. His widely-held view is that the tars, made out of chemicals known to be important in the origin of life, are nonetheless a dead …
Continue reading "Messy Chemistry, Evolving Rocks, and the Origin of Life"
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