Stardust, Supernovae and the Molecules of Life
Author :
Publisher : Springer
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 12,32 MB
Release : 2011-12-15
Category :
ISBN : 9781461413332
Author :
Publisher : Springer
Page : 228 pages
File Size : 12,32 MB
Release : 2011-12-15
Category :
ISBN : 9781461413332
Author : Richard Boyd
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 44,56 MB
Release : 2011-12-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 146141332X
Where were the amino acids, the molecules of life, created: perhaps in a lightning storm in the early Earth, or perhaps elsewhere in the cosmos? This book argues that at least some of them must have been produced in the cosmos, and that the fact that the Earthly amino acids have a specific handedness provides an important clue for that explanation. The book discusses several models that purport to explain the handedness, ultimately proposing a new explanation that involves cosmic processing of the amino acids produced in space. The book provides a tour for laypersons that includes a definition of life, the Big Bang, stellar nucleosynthesis, the electromagnetic spectrum, molecules, and supernovae and the particles they produce.
Author : John Gribbin
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 49,79 MB
Release : 2001-08-01
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780300090970
The Gribbins relate the developments in 20th-century astronomy that have led to the shattering realization that all life is made of stardust scattered across the universe in great stellar explosions from supernovae. The authors eloquently explain how the physical structure of the universe has produced conditions ideal for life. 22 illustrations.
Author :
Publisher :
Page : 9 pages
File Size : 44,79 MB
Release : 2010
Category :
ISBN :
A mechanism for creating and selecting amino acid chirality is identified, and subsequent chemical replication and galactic mixing that would populate the galaxy with the predominant species will be described. This involves: (1) the spin of the 14N in the amino acids, or in precursor molecules from which amino acids might be formed, coupling to the chirality of the molecules; (2) the neutrinos emitted from the supernova, together with magnetic field from the nascent neutron star or black hole from the supernova selectively destroying one orientation of the 14N, thereby selecting the chirality associated with the other 14N orientation; (3) amplification by chemical evolution, by which the molecules replicate on a relatively short timescale; and (4) galactic mixing on a longer timescale mixing the selected molecules throughout the galaxy.
Author : John Gribbin
Publisher : Allan Lane
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 33,94 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Science
ISBN :
Life begins with the process of star formation. Except for hydrogen, every single atom of every single element in our bodies has been manufactured inside stars and then scattered across the universe in great stellar explosions known as supernovas, only then to be recycled as part of us. The hydrogen is primordial material, produced in the Big Bang, but everything else has been built up in the burning hearts of stars. We are made of stardust.
Author :
Publisher :
Page : 14 pages
File Size : 19,24 MB
Release : 2011
Category :
ISBN :
A mechanism for creating enantiomerism in the amino acids, the building blocks of the proteins, that involves global selection of one chirality by interactions between the amino acids and neutrinos from core-collapse supernovae is described. The selection involves the dependence of the interaction cross sections on the orientations of the spins of the neutrinos and the 14N nuclei in the amino acids, or in precursor molecules, which in turn couple to the molecular chirality. The subsequent chemical evolution and galactic mixing would ultimately populate the Galaxy with the selected species. The resulting amino acids could either be the source thereof on Earth, or could have triggered the chirality that was ultimately achieved for Earth's amino acids.
Author : Michiya Fujiki
Publisher : Buy this from MDPI Books
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 37,18 MB
Release : 2019-11-14
Category : Science
ISBN : 3039217224
In 1978, Fred Hoyle proposed that interstellar comets carrying several viruses landed on Earth as part of the panspermia hypotheses. With respect to life, the origin of homochirality on Earth has been the greatest mystery because life cannot exist without molecular asymmetry. Many scientists have proposed several possible hypotheses to answer this long-standing L-D question. Previously, Martin Gardner raised the question about mirror symmetry and broken mirror symmetry in terms of the homochirality question in his monographs (1964 and 1990). Possible scenarios for the L-D issue can be categorized into (i) Earth and exoterrestrial origins, (ii) by-chance and necessity mechanisms, and (iii) mirror-symmetrical and non-mirror-symmetrical forces as physical and chemical origins. These scenarios should involve further great amplification mechanisms, enabling a pure L- or D-world.
Author : Neil Winterton
Publisher : Royal Society of Chemistry
Page : 584 pages
File Size : 26,52 MB
Release : 2021-02-04
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 1788019334
Following the success of the first edition, this fully updated and revised book continues to provide an interdisciplinary introduction to sustainability issues in the context of chemistry and chemical technology. Its prime objective is to equip young chemists (and others) to more fully to appreciate, defend and promote the role that chemistry and its practitioners play in moving towards a society better able to control, manage and ameliorate its impact on the ecosphere. To do this, it is necessary to set the ideas, concepts, achievements and challenges of chemistry and its application in the context of its environmental impact, past, present and future, and of the changes needed to bring about a more sustainable yet equitable world. Progress since 2010 is reflected by the inclusion of the latest research and thinking, selected and discussed to put the advances concisely in a much wider setting – historic, scientific, technological, intellectual and societal. The treatment also examines the complexities and additional challenges arising from public and media attitudes to science and technology and associated controversies and from the difficulties in reconciling environmental protection and global development. While the book stresses the central importance of rigour in the collection and treatment of evidence and reason in decision-making, to ensure that it meets the needs of an extensive community of students, it is broad in scope, rather than deep. It is, therefore, appropriate for a wide audience, including all practising scientists and technologists.
Author : Luca Vanzago
Publisher : Quodlibet
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 33,29 MB
Release : 2014-09-01
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 8874627521
Contents: Luca Vanzago, Introduction • Ted Toadvine, Tempo naturale e natura immemoriale • Luca Vanzago, The Problem of Nature between Philosophy and Science. Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Ontology and its Epistemological Implications • Roberta Lanfredini, Essenza e Natura: Husserl e Merleau-Ponty sulla fondazione dell’essere vivente • Christopher Pollard, Merleau-Ponty and Embodied Cognitive Science • Gianluca De Fazio, L’Essere pre-logico. Una lettura ontologica dell’interpretazione di Copenhagen a partire da Merleau-Ponty • Danilo Manca, La scienza allo stato nascente. Merleau-Ponty e Sellars sull’immagine scientifica della natura • Darian Meacham, Sense and Life: Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Nature and Evolutionary Biology • Franck Robert, Merleau-Ponty, Whitehead, une pensée de la vie • Claus Halberg, Emergent Life: Addressing the “Ontological-Diplopia” of the 21st Century with Merleau-Ponty and Deacon • Prisca Amoroso, Prospettive ecologiche nell’opera di Merleau-Ponty
Author : Erik Olin Wright
Publisher : Haymarket Books
Page : 287 pages
File Size : 29,77 MB
Release : 2020-07-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1642592056
Erik Olin Wright, one of the most important sociologists of his time, takes readers along on his intimate and brave journey toward death, and asks the big questions about human mortality. From the renowned Marxist sociologist and educator Erik Olin Wright, Stardust to Stardust is a curated collection of writings from the months of his treatment and hospitalization for acute myeloid leukemia. This combination of personal narrative with Wright’s analytical perspective results in a deeply complex, philosophical meditation on death and the meaning of existence.