The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection
Author : Leslie E. Orgel
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 28,64 MB
Release : 1973
Category : Science
ISBN :
Author : Leslie E. Orgel
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 28,64 MB
Release : 1973
Category : Science
ISBN :
Author : Freeman Dyson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 114 pages
File Size : 36,37 MB
Release : 1999-09-28
Category : Science
ISBN : 1139425765
How did life on earth originate? Did replication or metabolism come first in the history of life? In this book, Freeman Dyson examines these questions and discusses the two main theories that try to explain how naturally occurring chemicals could organize themselves into living creatures. The majority view is that life began with replicating molecules, the precursors of modern genes. The minority belief is that random populations of molecules evolved metabolic activities before exact replication existed. Dyson analyzes both of these theories with reference to recent important discoveries by geologists and chemists. His main aim is to stimulate experiments that could help to decide which theory is correct. This second edition covers the enormous advances that have been made in biology and geology in the past and the impact they have had on our ideas about how life began. It is a clearly-written, fascinating book that will appeal to anyone interested in the origins of life.
Author : John Maynard Smith
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 13,75 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Science
ISBN : 019286209X
Presents, for the general readership, the novel picture of evolution proposed in the 1995 book, The major transitions in evolution.
Author : Alexander Graham Cairns-Smith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 40,99 MB
Release : 1990-09-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780521398282
The mysteries surrounding the origins of life on earth are written in detective story fashion by a world famous scientist in this popular version of Genetic Takeover, originally published in 1982.
Author : Bruce Alberts
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 49,48 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Cytology
ISBN : 9780815332183
Author : Hoimar von Ditfurth
Publisher : HarperCollins Publishers
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 21,43 MB
Release : 1982
Category : Evolution
ISBN :
Author : C. H. Waddington
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 29,56 MB
Release :
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0202367673
Theoretical biology is still in its early stages as an academic discipline. There is even little agreement as to what topics it should deal with or in what manner it should precede; and it is only recently that philosophers felt called upon to notice the relevance of biological topics as evolution or perception to their traditional problems. This work is a publication of the International Union of Biological Sciences, the central organization of all the branches of biology. The main focus here is to explore the possibility of formulating some frame of concepts and methods around which theoretical biology can grow. The intention of this collective effort was that discussions would be concerned, not with the theory of particular biological processes, such as membrane permeability, genetics, and neural activity, but rather with an attempt to discover and formulate general concepts and logical relations characteristic of living as contrasted with inorganic systems. Further, this project is a consideration of implications these might have for general philosophy. Many well-known scientists contributed to this volume, such as J. Maynard Smith, Ernst Mayr, Brian Goodwin, and Renà Thom. The Origin of Life: Toward a Theoretical Biology explores the character of the problems facing any theory of general biology. It contains a series of chapters and exchanges discussing such topics as the origin of life, cellular differentiation, morphogensis, evolution, and indeterminacy in biological and physical systems, the organization of the brain, the statistical mechanics of non-linear oscillators, and many other topics. This is a pioneering volume by recognized leaders in an emerging fieldâthe first of four such works.
Author : Pier Luigi Luisi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 22,4 MB
Release : 2006-07-13
Category : Science
ISBN : 1139455648
The origin of life from inanimate matter has been the focus of much research for decades, both experimentally and philosophically. Luisi takes the reader through the consecutive stages from prebiotic chemistry to synthetic biology, uniquely combining both approaches. This book presents a systematic course discussing the successive stages of self-organisation, emergence, self-replication, autopoiesis, synthetic compartments and construction of cellular models, in order to demonstrate the spontaneous increase in complexity from inanimate matter to the first cellular life forms. A chapter is dedicated to each of these steps, using a number of synthetic and biological examples. With end-of-chapter review questions to aid reader comprehension, this book will appeal to graduate students and academics researching the origin of life and related areas such as evolutionary biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics and natural sciences.
Author : Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin
Publisher : Courier Dover Publications
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 47,87 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Evolution (Biology)
ISBN : 9780486495224
This classic of biochemistry offered the first detailed exposition of the theory that living tissue was preceded upon Earth by a long and gradual evolution of nitrogen and carbon compounds. "Easily the most scholarly authority on the question...it will be a landmark for discussion for a long time to come." — New York Times.
Author : David W. Deamer
Publisher : Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 27,43 MB
Release : 1994
Category : Medical
ISBN :