First life : discovering the connections between stars, planets, and evolution on earth / David Deamer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Deamer, David W., 1939-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Exobiology.

Life--Origin.

Life.

Evolution (Biology).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (283 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This pathbreaking book explores how life can begin, taking us from cosmic clouds of stardust, to volcanoes on Earth, to the modern chemistry laboratory. Seeking to understand life's connection to the stars, David Deamer introduces astrobiology, a new scientific discipline that studies the origin and evolution of life on Earth and relates it to the birth and death of stars, planet formation, interfaces between minerals, water, and atmosphere, and the physics and chemistry of carbon compounds. Deamer argues that life began as systems of molecules that assembled into membrane-bound packages. These in turn provided an essential compartment in which more complex molecules assumed new functions required for the origin of life and the beginning of evolution. Deamer takes us from the vivid and unpromising chaos of the Earth four billion years ago up to the present and his own laboratory, where he contemplates the prospects for generating synthetic life. Engaging and accessible, First Life describes the scientific story of astrobiology while presenting a fascinating hypothesis to explain the origin of life.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. A Fireball Over Australia

2. Where Did Life Begin?

3. When Did Life Begin?

4. Carbon and the Building Blocks of Life

5. The Handedness of Life

6. Energy and Life's Origins

7. Self-Assembly and Emergence

8. How To Build a Cell

9. Achieving Complexity

10. Multiple Strands of Life

11. Catalysts: Life in the Fast Lane

12. Copying Life's Blueprints

13. How Evolution Begins

14. A Grand Simulation of Prebiotic Earth

15. Prospects for Synthetic Life

Epilogue

Sources and Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613278029

9781283278027

1283278022

9780520948952

0520948955

OCLC:

726734844