Chemical Evolution: Physics of the Origin and Evolution of Life: Proceedings of the Fourth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution, Trieste, Italy, 4–8 September 1995

Front Matter....Pages i-xiv
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
Cosmic Evolution, Life and Man....Pages 3-19
Experimental Retracement of Terrestrial Origin of an Excitable Cell: Was it Predictable? ....Pages 21-32
Front Matter....Pages 33-33
Cosmology: the Universe in Evolution....Pages 35-49
From Cosmic Formation of Chiral Bioorganics in Interstellar Dust to Comet Seeds of Life’s Origins: Are 10 25 Chances Enough ?....Pages 51-71
Strategies for the Search of Life in the Universe....Pages 73-84
Front Matter....Pages 85-85
Age of the Isua Supracrustal Sequence of West Greenland: A plausible repository for early life ....Pages 87-95
Clays as Natural Catalyst in Prebiotic Processes....Pages 97-106
Role of Transient and Stable Molecules in Chemical Evolution....Pages 107-122
Lightning Associated to Archean Volcanic Ash-Gas Clouds....Pages 123-142
Front Matter....Pages 143-143
Evolutionary, Kinetic and Thermodynamic Aspects on the Bioenergetics of Inorganic Pyrophosphate (PPi) and Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP)....Pages 145-150
Mineral Metal Sulphur Clusters as a Testbed for Studies of Evolutionary Continuity....Pages 151-156
Thermal Peptides as the Initial Genetic System....Pages 157-165
Origin of Nucleic Acids....Pages 167-169
Origin of Fatty Acids....Pages 171-173
Front Matter....Pages 175-175
Oxygen and the Rapid Evolution of Life on Mars....Pages 177-184
First Steps in Eukaryogenesis: Physical phenomena in the origin and evolution of chromosome structure....Pages 185-196
Biological Aspects of the Origin of Life: Open Questions in Eukaryogenesis ....Pages 197-213
A Putative Living Fossil of the RNA World is Likely to be of Recent Origin....Pages 215-220
Thermodynamic Nature of the Biological Evolution the Model and the Reality....Pages 221-230
Boltzmann’s Dynamics on the Primitive Earth about 3.8 Billion Years Ago....Pages 231-238
Front Matter....Pages 175-175
Thermodynamic and Kinetic Properties of Prebiological Open Systems....Pages 239-247
Front Matter....Pages 249-249
On the Determination of the Physical Origin of Homochirality in Life....Pages 251-267
Possible Role of Phosphoryl Group Excitation in Chemical Evolution....Pages 269-278
Basic Models of Chemical Evolution of Life: The minimum evolving system ....Pages 279-285
 Ab Initio Calculation of Molecular Energies Including Parity Violating Interactions....Pages 287-296
Front Matter....Pages 297-297
Prebiotic Chemical Evolution and Darwinian Revolution....Pages 299-304
«La Grande Galerie de L’Evolution» of Paris: The Only Museum in the World Entirely Devoted to Biological Evolution....Pages 305-309
Front Matter....Pages 311-311
New Approaches in Mathematical Biology: Information Theory and Molecular Machines....Pages 313-321
Information-Processing Genes: Molecular Biology in the Computational Paradigm ....Pages 323-332
Front Matter....Pages 333-333
Progress in Searches for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Radio Signals....Pages 335-341
SETI from the Moon....Pages 343-353
Front Matter....Pages 355-355
In Situ Exploration of Titan and Cometary Nucleus: Implication for Exobiology....Pages 357-371
Looking for the Homochiral Signature of Life: The Seth Cigar....Pages 373-379
Strategy for Detection of Bioorganic Compounds on Mars....Pages 381-388
Martian Soil Analysis....Pages 389-395
Front Matter....Pages 397-397
Excerpts from Letters Read at the Conference....Pages 399-401
Speakers from Scientific Academies and Foundations of which Cyril Ponnamperuma was a Member....Pages 402-406
Back Matter....Pages 407-413