The origin of life is a fascinating, unresolved problem whose deciphering would have
important scientific, epistemological and social implications. Over time, philosophers and …

The “Open Questions” framework reflects an understandable frustration of many who study
“origins” that much of current research into the “origins problem” seems to be no different …

The challenge of a chemical approach to the origins of life problem involves comprehending
the transition from prebiotic chemistry to protobiology. This endeavor demands …

Living organisms are the most complex chemical system known to exist, yet they exploit only
a small constellation of universally conserved metabolites to support indefinite evolution …

Prebiotic chemistry aims to explain how the biochemistry of life as we know it came to be.
Most efforts in this area have focused on provisioning compounds of importance to life by …

How life on Earth began remains an unexplained scientific problem. This problem is
nuanced in its practical details and the way attempted explanations feedback with questions …

How can matter transition from the nonliving to the living state? The answer is essential for
understanding the origin of life on Earth and for identifying promising targets in the search …

Understanding how life on Earth might have originated is the major goal of origins of life
chemistry. To proceed from simple feedstock molecules and energy sources to a living …

Prebiotic chemistry plays a central role in the investigation of the possible scenarios of the
early chemical environments. Its goal is to shed light on the events involved in the synthesis …

A variety of macromolecules and small molecules—(oligo) nucleotides, proteins, lipids and
metabolites—are collectively considered essential to early life. However, previous schemes …