Download or read book Origins of Existence written by Fred C. Adams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Origins of Existence astrophysicist Fred Adams takes a radically different approach from the long tradition of biologists and spiritual leaders who have tried to explain how the universe supports the development of life. He argues that life followed naturally from the laws of physics -- which were established as the universe burst into existence at the big bang. Those elegant laws drove the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets -- including some like our Earth. That chain of creation produced all the tiny chemical structures and vast celestial landscapes required for life. Ultimately, physical laws and the complexity they generate define the kind of biospheres that are possible -- from an Amazon rain forest to a frigid ocean beneath an ice sheet on a Jovian moon. Adams suggests that life was not merely some lucky break, but rather a natural outcome of the ascending ladder of complexity supported by our universe. Since our galaxy seems to harbor millions of planets with the same basic elements of habitability as Earth, the emergence of life is probably not a rare event. If life emerges deep inside planets and moons, as new research suggests happened on our planet, the number of viable habitats is truly enormous. Seven chronological chapters take the reader from the laws of physics and birth of the universe to the origins of life on Earth -- showing how energy flowed, exploded, and was repeatedly harnessed in replicating structures and organisms. In his groundbreaking first book, Fred Adams established the five eras of the universe with a focus on its long-term future. It is perhaps not surprising that he now turns his attention to the mystery of our astronomical origins. Here is a stunning new perspective, a book of genesis for our time, revealing how the laws of physics created galaxies, stars, planets, and even life in the universe.
Download or read book Our Living Multiverse written by Fred Adams and published by Plume. This book was released on 2004 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Origins of Life written by Douglas Whittet and published by Morgan & Claypool Publishers. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origins of Life: A Cosmic Perspective presents an overview of the concepts, methods, and theories of astrobiology and origins of life research while presenting a summary of the latest findings. The book provides insight into the environments and processes that gave birth to life on our planet, which naturally informs our assessment of the probability that has arisen (or will arise) elsewhere. In addition, the book encourages readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and to engage in lively discussions. The text is intended to be suitable for mid- and upper-level undergraduates and beginning graduate students and more generally as an introduction and overview for researchers and general readers seeking to follow current developments in this interdisciplinary field. Readers are assumed to have a basic grounding in the relevant sciences, but prior specialized knowledge is not required. Each chapter concludes with a list of questions and discussion topics as well as suggestions for further reading. Some questions can be answered with reference to material in the text, but others require further reading and some have no known answers. The intention is to encourage readers to go beyond basic concepts, to explore topics in greater depth, and, in a classroom setting, to engage in lively discussions with class members.
Download or read book The Origins of Life and the Universe written by Paul F. Lurquin and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Because his undergraduate course Origins of Life was so popular, and because there is so much discussion of the matter in both religious and scientific realms, biochemist Lurquin thought that the general public might by interested as well in a synopsis and synthesis of the current thinking. So he revised his course notes for lay readers, to demonstrate that the logic of science can be used to make deep sense of the world from the creation of the universe to the creation of life and its diversification. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Download or read book The Origins of Life written by David W. Deamer and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life arose on Earth more than three billion years ago. How the first self-replicating systems emerged from prebiotic chemistry and evolved into primitive cell-like entities is an area of intense research, spanning molecular and cellular biology, organic chemistry, cosmology, geology, and atmospheric science. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology provides a comprehensive account of the environment of the early Earth and the mechanisms by which the organic molecules present may have self-assembled to form replicating material such as RNA and other polymers. The contributors examine the energetic requirements for this process and focus in particular on the essential role of semi-permeable compartments in containment of primitive genetic systems. Also covered in the book are new synthetic approaches for fabricating cellular systems, the potentially extraterrestrial origin of life's building blocks, and the possibility that life once existed on Mars. Comprising five sections Setting the Stage, Components of First Life, Primitive Systems, First Polymers, and Transition to a Microbial World it is a vital reference for all scientists interested in the origin of life on Earth and the likelihood that it has arisen on other planets
Download or read book Origins of Life written by Geoffrey Zubay and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2000-01-18 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Origins of Life on the Earth and in the Cosmos, Second Edition, suggests answers to the age-old questions of how life arose in the universe and how it might arise elsewhere. This thorough revision of a very successful text describes key events in the evolution of living systems, starting with the creation of an environment suitable for the origins of life. Whereas one may never be able to reconstruct the precise pathway that led to the origin of life on earth, one can certainly make some plausible reconstructions of it. Such discussions have greatly expanded our understanding of the principles of chemical evolution and how they compare and contrast with the principles of biological evolution. The text is strong on biochemistry and its recent applications to origins' research. Provides an excellent review of basic biochemistry an evolution Written in a clear, concise style for scientists, students, and readers interested in a scientific inquiry into the origins of life Written by an authority in the field, and brought fully up-to-date in light of new research Pulls together valuable information not found in a single source Organized and presented in a manner conductive for use in a college course Heavily illustrated to make difficult concepts concrete
Download or read book Astronomical Origins of Life written by B. Hoyle and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Living material contains about twenty different sorts of atom combined into a set of relatively simple molecules. Astrobiologists tend to believe that abiotic mater ial will give rise to life in any place where these molecules exist in appreciable abundances and where physical conditions approximate to those occurring here on Earth. We think this popular view is wrong, for it is not the existence of the building blocks of life that is crucial but the exceedingly complicated structures in which they are arranged in living forms. The probability of arriving at biologically significant arrangements is so very small that only by calling on the resources of the whole universe does there seem to be any possibility of life originating, a conclusion that requires life on the Earth to be a minute component of a universal system. Some think that the hugely improbable transition from non-living to living mat ter can be achieved by dividing the transition into many small steps, calling on a so-called 'evolutionary' process to bridge the small steps one by one. This claim turns on semantic arguments which seek to replace the probability for the whole chain by the sum of the individual probabilities of the many steps, instead of by their product. This is an error well known to those bookies who are accustomed to taking bets on the stacking of horse races. But we did not begin our investigation from this point of view.
Download or read book The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth written by Eric Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 703 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uniting the foundations of physics and biology, this groundbreaking multidisciplinary and integrative book explores life as a planetary process.
Download or read book The Revolutionary Origins of Life and Death written by Pierre M. Durand and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-12-09 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of why an individual would actively kill itself has long been an evolutionary mystery. Pierre M. Durand’s ambitious book answers this question through close inspection of life and death in the earliest cellular life. As Durand shows us, cell death is a fascinating lens through which to examine the interconnectedness, in evolutionary terms, of life and death. It is a truism to note that one does not exist without the other, but just how does this play out in evolutionary history? These two processes have been studied from philosophical, theoretical, experimental, and genomic angles, but no one has yet integrated the information from these various disciplines. In this work, Durand synthesizes cellular studies of life and death looking at the origin of life and the evolutionary significance of programmed cellular death. The exciting and unexpected outcome of Durand’s analysis is the realization that life and death exhibit features of coevolution. The evolution of more complex cellular life depended on the coadaptation between traits that promote life and those that promote death. In an ironic twist, it becomes clear that, in many circumstances, programmed cell death is essential for sustaining life.
Download or read book Origins of Life in the Universe written by Robert Jastrow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most fascinating questions on the history of the Universe are answered in this text.
Download or read book The Origin of Life written by Paul Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2006-09-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The origins of life remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of science. Growing evidence suggests that the first organisms lived deep underground, in environments previously thought to be uninhabitable, and that microbes carried inside rocks have travelled between Earth and Mars. But the question remains: how can life spring into being from non-living chemicals? THE FIFTH MIRACLE reveals the remarkable new theories and discoveries that seem set to transform our understanding of life's role in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.
Download or read book The Search for Life s Origins written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1990-02-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of planetary biology and chemical evolution draws together experts in astronomy, paleobiology, biochemistry, and space science who work together to understand the evolution of living systems. This field has made exciting discoveries that shed light on how organic compounds came together to form self-replicating molecules-the origin of life. This volume updates that progress and offers recommendations on research programs-including an ambitious effort centered on Mars-to advance the field over the next 10 to 15 years. The book presents a wide range of data and research results on these and other issues: The biogenic elements and their interaction in the interstellar clouds and in solar nebulae. Early planetary environments and the conditions that lead to the origin of life. The evolution of cellular and multicellular life. The search for life outside the solar system. This volume will become required reading for anyone involved in the search for life's beginnings-including exobiologists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, and U.S. space and science policymakers.
Download or read book Science and Creationism written by National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition of Science and Creationism summarizes key aspects of several of the most important lines of evidence supporting evolution. It describes some of the positions taken by advocates of creation science and presents an analysis of these claims. This document lays out for a broader audience the case against presenting religious concepts in science classes. The document covers the origin of the universe, Earth, and life; evidence supporting biological evolution; and human evolution. (Contains 31 references.) (CCM)
Download or read book The Five Ages of the Universe written by Fred C. Adams and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000-06-19 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes readers on a fantastic voyage to the physics of eternity, with a long-term projection of the evolution of the universe.
Download or read book Origins of Life written by Fazale Rana and published by NavPress Publishing Group. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine primordial Earth, a churning cauldron of liquefied rock. Steaming, seething -- a vast desolate wasteland, inhospitable to life. Yet somehow first life appeared. Maybe chemicals in a primordial soup spontaneously spawned a single-celled creature that continued to evolve. Or perhaps a transcendent Creator formed and nurtured the initial life forms. To determine what really happened requires a framework to evaluate the evidence. For the first time in print, Dr. Rana and Dr. Ross present a scientific model for the creation of first life on Earth -- a model based on the Bible. They present testable predictions for this life-origins scenario and for the competing naturalistic scenarios. Which model withstands the rigorous scrutiny of science and the tests of time? The one that does gives insight to a deeper question: Why would the first life forms precede human life by billions of years? Book jacket.
Download or read book The Origins of Life written by John Maynard Smith and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents, for the general readership, the novel picture of evolution proposed in the 1995 book, The major transitions in evolution.
Download or read book The Origins of Life on the Earth written by Stanley L. Miller and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1974 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
