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Index
COVER PAGE
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Prologue
Part I Emergence and the Origin of Life
1 The Missing Law
THE LAWS OF NATURE
DESCRIBING EMERGENT SYSTEMS
QUANTIFYING THE COMPLEXITY OF EMERGENT SYSTEMS
PATTERNS IN THE SAND
Factor 1: The Concentration of Agents
Factor 2: The Interconnectivity of Agents
Factor 3: Energy Flow Through the System
Factor 4: Cycling of Energy Flow
FORMULATING EMERGENCE
2 What Is Life?
“TOP-DOWN” VERSUS “BOTTOM-UP”
ORIGINS AND EMERGENCE
AN EXPERIMENTAL STRATEGY
3 Looking for Life
LIFE ON MARS: THE ALLAN HILLS STORY
EARTH'S OLDEST FOSSILS—THE SCHOPF–BRASIER CONTROVERSY
4 Earth's Smallest Fossils
FOSSIL ATOMS
FOSSIL ISOTOPES
EARTH'S OLDEST “FOSSILS”?
5 Idiosyncrasies
SYNTHETIC QUIRKINESS
THE HOPANE STORY
BIOSIGNATURES AND ABIOSIGNATURES
LOOKING FOR LIFE ON MARS
Interlude—God in the Gaps
Part II The Emergence of Biomolecules
6 Stanley Miller's Spark of Genius
SPECULATION
EXPERIMENTS
THE COTTAGE INDUSTRY OF PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY
DOUBTS
7 Heaven or Hell?
ENERGY
DEEP ECOSYSTEMS
LIFE IN ROCKS
MINING FOR MICROBES
THE DEEP HOT BIOSPHERE
HEAVEN VERSUS HELL
8 Under Pressure
EXPERIMENTS
ENTER WÄCHTERSHÄUSER
EXPERIMENTS
FIXING CARBON
9 Productive Environments
MOLECULES FROM DEEP SPACE
MOLECULES FROM GIANT IMPACTS
MOLECULES FROM HOT ROCKS
THE MULTIPLE-SOURCE HYPOTHESIS
Interlude—Mythos Versus Logos
Part III The Emergence of Macromolecules
10 The Macromolecules of Life
MODULAR LIVING
MOLECULAR PHYLOGENY AND THE “LAST COMMON ANCESTOR”
11 Isolation
SELF-ORGANIZATION
MEMBRANES FROM SPACE
SELF-ORGANIZATION, REPRISE
PYRUVATE REDUX
AEROSOL LIFE
12 Minerals to the Rescue
MINERALS AS PROTECTION
POLYMERIZATION ON THE ROCKS
MORE MINERAL MAGIC
CLAY LIFE
TESTING
13 Left and Right
THE HANDEDNESS OF LIFE
LOCAL SYMMETRY BREAKING
CHIRAL MINERAL SURFACES
Interlude—Where Are the Women?
Part IV The Emergence of Self-Replicating Systems
14 Wheels Within Wheels
SELF-REPLICATING MOLECULES
SELF-REPLICATING MOLECULAR SYSTEMS
THE GAME OF METABOLISM
THE PROTENOID WORLD
THE THIOESTER WORLD
15 The Iron–Sulfur World
BACK TO THE VENTS
THE REVERSE CITRIC ACID CYCLE
EXPERIMENTS
FLAT LIFE
16 The RNA World
THE RNA WORLD
CAVEATS
17 The Pre-RNA World
THE PAH WORLD
EUREKA!
SHARING
OPINIONS
EXPERIMENTS
MOVING ON
18 The Emergence of Competition
MOLECULAR SELECTION AND EVOLUTION
EVOLUTION IN THE LAB
SELF-REPLICATING RNA
SYNTHETIC LIFE
19 Three Scenarios for the Origin of Life
Epilogue The Journey Ahead
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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