All Origins of life articles
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ResearchAdding constraints to understand life’s chemical origins
Matt Powner wants to know if there are chemical rules that govern why certain synthetic strategies are embedded in biology
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Research
Lightning may have created essential building blocks for life on Earth
Reduced phosphorus material discovered in geological sample offers insight into life’s origins
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Research
Mission accomplished for scientist who set out to bring astrobiology to Portugal
Zita Martins discusses her work searching for molecules related to the origin of life
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Research
Steroid fossilisation discovery opens new chapter in debate around oldest animal
Are the biomolecules found in 635-million-year-old rocks the earliest evidence of animal life or just plant remnants?
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Research
Algorithm discovers how six simple molecules could evolve into life’s building blocks
Program shows how micelles, catalysts and self-replicating chemical systems emerge from abiotic precursors
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Feature
Unnatural selection in chemical systems
Great strides have been made in the lab with chemical systems that ape life’s behaviour
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Research
Simple lipid networks combine self-assembly, replication, competition and inhibition
Artificial cells have previously lacked the complexity that is distinct to natural life but scientists are edging closer
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Research
Self-replicating molecules show signs of metabolism for the first time
Chemical system combines two of life’s three essential features making it one of the most lifelike yet
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Opinion
Making light of bioluminescence
Glowing may be a side-effect of a very different original purpose
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Research
Mystery of where early Earth’s life-fuelling phosphates came from may have been solved
Meteorites have been source of building blocks for primordial life
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Research
Chemical stimulus used to trigger synthetic cell division
Mother vesicle that divides into two smaller daughter vesicles could be a plausible model of primitive cells
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Research
Computer says no to membrane-bound life on Titan
Scientists quash inside–out cell membrane theory but don’t completely rule out possibility of life on cryogenic liquid hydrocarbon worlds
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Research
Unified synthesis shows how genetic alphabet could have been put together on early Earth
Cycles of wet and then dry conditions provide the right conditions to make all the nucleobases from basic chemicals
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Research
Why does all life use the same 20 amino acids?
Chemical properties offer an answer to why nature limits itself to so few protein building blocks
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Research
Bubbly beginnings for life's first molecules
Gas bubble simulations support the idea that life began in hydrothermal vents
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Research
Microdroplets’ chemical wizardry could have given life a helping hand
Droplet reduction may shed light on puzzles of the prebiotic era and offer a new way to do green chemistry
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Research
Resurrected enzyme aces cellulose catalysis
Protein that survived extreme conditions on early Earth could be a boon for biofuel industry
