The Molecular Origins of Life

The origin of life was an event probably unique in the Earth’s history, and reconstructing this event is like assembling a puzzle made up of many pieces. These pieces are composed of information acquired from many different disciplines. The aim of this book is to integrate the most recent discoveries in astronomy, planetology, paleontology, biology, and chemistry, and to use this knowledge to present plausible scenarios that give us a better understanding of the likely origin of life on Earth. Twenty-two top experts contribute to chapters that discuss everything from the environment and atmosphere of the early Earth, through the appearance of organic molecules in the prebiotic environment, to primitive chiral systems capable of self-replication and evolution by mutation. The book also discusses various clues to the origin of life that can be obtained from the study of the past and present microbial world, as well as from the planets Titan and Mars. Chemists, biologists, Earth scientists, and astronomers will find that this book presents a thought-provoking summary of our current state of knowledge of this extraordinary event.