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.

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).

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.

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

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.

The most fascinating questions on the history of the Universe are answered in this text.

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

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.

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)