Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #abiogenesis
Most recents (4)
"'The #energy that flows through a system acts to organize that system,' Harold Morowitz wrote in 1968. Decades later he would team up with physicist Eric Smith at SFI, and the collaboration would lay out a new theory of #abiogenesis."
@BobbyAzarian:
rawstory.com/darwin-2657159…
@BobbyAzarian:
rawstory.com/darwin-2657159…
"According to Smith & Morowitz, life emerged b/c Earth’s geochemistry created an excess of chemical energy. Organic chemistry self-organize[s] when sufficient energy [flows] through the system. Given enough time, a self-maintaining chemical system emerges that can copy itself."
"'If life in its abundance were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order,' writes origins-of-life pioneer Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute, 'then we truly are at home in the universe.'"
What started with checking some assumptions in #originsoflife and IUPAC definitions, culminated in our universal framework for autocatalysis, now in @PNASNews: pnas.org/content/early/…. The unforeseen diversity and abundance of that phenomenon convinced me to do #systemschemistry.
There are some interesting consequences that I hope to discuss in the coming few days. Today, I will outline where it all starts: definitions in chemistry and their implications. (1/n)
Like compound names and atomic weights, terminology in chemistry is critically evaluated, developed and maintained by IUPAC. Definitions in chemistry are compiled in the Gold Book: goldbook.iupac.org. (2/n)
Mimicking Simple Life Without Biochemistry
Follow this thread for insights from today's SFI Seminar by Juan Pérez-Mercader (SFI + @Harvard), which you can watch live on our FB page. Recording will be saved for later viewing at this link, as well as YT:
facebook.com/santafeinstitu…
Follow this thread for insights from today's SFI Seminar by Juan Pérez-Mercader (SFI + @Harvard), which you can watch live on our FB page. Recording will be saved for later viewing at this link, as well as YT:
facebook.com/santafeinstitu…
More info about today's seminar by SFI External Professor Juan Pérez-Mercader (@Harvard) on Mimicking Simple Life Without Biochemistry:
santafe.edu/events/mimicki…
#astrobiology #biochemistry #complexity
santafe.edu/events/mimicki…
#astrobiology #biochemistry #complexity
What properties characterize life? The search for a fundamental theory of #biology continues to face some serious challenges:
• n = 1
• no unified math
• can't modify carbon experimentally
• biology is still process-description
BUT: ✨ info-metabolism-replication-evolution ✨
• n = 1
• no unified math
• can't modify carbon experimentally
• biology is still process-description
BUT: ✨ info-metabolism-replication-evolution ✨
#OriginofLife or #Abiogenesis 🔥🔥🔥
1/ Life is the condition that distinguishes plants & animals (including humans) from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity & continual change preceding death.
1/ Life is the condition that distinguishes plants & animals (including humans) from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity & continual change preceding death.
2/ Life functions thru th specialized chemistry of carbon & water & builds largely upon four key families of chemicals:
i) lipids (fatty cell walls),
ii) carbohydrates (sugars, cellulose),
iii) amino acids (protein metabolism), &
iv) nucleic acids (self-replicating DNA&RNA).
i) lipids (fatty cell walls),
ii) carbohydrates (sugars, cellulose),
iii) amino acids (protein metabolism), &
iv) nucleic acids (self-replicating DNA&RNA).
3/ #Abiogenesis is the natural process by which life & living systems arose from non-living elements, such as simple organic compounds.
