Read complete books and articles on: Origin of Life

Life - although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction. Protozoa perform, in a single cell, the same life functions as those carried on by the complex tissues and organs of humans and other highly developed organisms. The attributes of life are inherent in such minute structures as viruses, bacteria, and genes, just as they are in the whale and the giant sequoia. In seeking an understanding of life, scientists have broken down many barriers that once separated the physical sciences from the biological sciences; a result of the growth of biochemistry, biophysics, and other interrelated fields of study has been a better understanding of the composition and functioning of living tissues of all kinds.

Characteristics of Life

Organization is found in the basic living unit, the cell, and in the organized groupings of cells into organs and organisms. Metabolism includes the conversion of nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and the decomposition of organic matter (catalysis), producing energy. Growth in living matter is an increase in size of all parts, as distinguished from simple addition of material; it results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. Irritability, or response to stimuli, takes many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals; in plants response is usually much different than in animals but is nonetheless present. Adaptation, the accommodation of a living organism to its present or to a new environment, is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the individual's heredity. The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction; usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

The Basis of Life

Much of the history of biology and of philosophy as related to biology has been marked by a division of thought between vitalistic (or animistic) and mechanistic (or materialistic) concepts. In the most antithetic interpretations of these concepts, the vitalistic school maintains that there is a vital force that distinguishes the living from the nonliving and the mechanistic school holds that there is no essential difference between the animate and inanimate and that all life can be explained by physical and chemical laws. Such diametrically opposed views have actually seldom been held by investigators of either school; elements of both are usually involved. The animistic school, largely predicated on the inexplicability of the basic phenomena of life, has been greatly overshadowed by the accumulating weight of scientific data. As more and more is learned of the minute details of the structure and composition of the substances that make up the cell (to the extent that some have been synthesized chemically), it has become increasingly apparent that living matter is made up of the same (and only those) elements found in inorganic material, except that they are differently organized.

The Origin of Life

Fundamental religious concepts center around special creation and belief in the infusion of life into inanimate substance by God or another superhuman entity. On the other hand, many scientists have hypothesized that during an early geological period there gradually formed in the atmosphere increasingly complex organic substances composed of available inorganic compounds and water, utilizing ultraviolet rays and electrical discharges as energy sources. At a certain stage they formed a diffuse solution of "nutrient broth." Then in some way they were drawn together and developed the capacity for self-renewal and self-reproduction. In 1953, S. L. Miller synthesized several of the most basic amino acids in a glass flask by introducing an electrical discharge into an atmosphere of water vapor and some simple compounds thought to have been present naturally at the time when life first developed on earth. A more recent theory now widely held is that life originated in a volcanic setting more than 3.5 billion years ago, perhaps in hot deep-sea vents, utilizing a biochemistry based largely on sulfur and iron. The theory that life on earth came in a simple form from another planet has had small currency, although the discovery by Melvin Calvin of molecules resembling genetic material in meteors has given it some force.

Bibliography

See M. Calvin, Chemical Evolution (1969); E. Borek, The Sculpture of Life (1973); N. D. Newell, Creation and Evolution (1985); S. W. Fox and K. Dose, Molecular Evolution and the Origins of Life (3d ed. 1990); R. Fortey, Life (1998).

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Origin of Life

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative » Read Now
by Christian de Duve. 362 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

A sweeping portrait--covering four billion years--of the possible origins and evolution of life on earth, written by a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist on the cutting edge of research into these issues.
2.

The Spark of Life: Darwin and the Primeval Soup » Read Now
by Christopher Wills, Jeffrey Bada. 294 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Where did we come from? Did life arise on earth or on some other planet? What did the earliest primitive organisms look like? Untangling a century of contentious debate, the authors explore current theories of the source of life -- from Martian meteors to hydrothermal vents -- and then present their...
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Where did we come from? Did life arise on earth or on some other planet? What did the earliest primitive organisms look like? Untangling a century of contentious debate, the authors explore current theories of the source of life -- from Martian meteors to hydrothermal vents -- and then present their own elegant scenario: Life arose not in the subterranean depths, as many believe, but on Earth's tumultuous surface, where a primitive form of natural selection spawned the first genetic material, perhaps in the form of a proto-virus. Knowing exactly how life began on Earth will not only teach us more about ourselves, it will bring us closer to finding life elsewhere.
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3.

The Garden of Ediacara: Discovering the First Complex Life » Read Now
by Mark A. S. Mcmenamin. 304 pgs.

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During an expedition in Sonora, Mexico, paleontologist Mark A. S. McMenamin unearthed fossils of creatures dated at approximately 600 million years old -- making them the oldest large body fossils ever discovered. These circular fossils, known as Ediacarans, seemed to defy explanation...
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During an expedition in Sonora, Mexico, paleontologist Mark A. S. McMenamin unearthed fossils of creatures dated at approximately 600 million years old -- making them the oldest large body fossils ever discovered. These circular fossils, known as Ediacarans, seemed to defy explanation. Representatives of marine life forms that existed in Precambrian times, as much as fifty million years before life on earth began to diversify rapidly, the specimens bore a superficial resemblance to jellyfish. A typical Ediacaran had a quilted body, three curving arms at the center, and a fringe of fine radial lines. McMenamin's curiosity was fueled by the puzzle of whether the Ediacarans were animals or some other type of organism. How could such complex forms of life appear so suddenly, without extensive records of prior evolution? Yet, this seems to be exactly what the Ediacarans had done. The Garden of Ediacara presents a mesmerizing documentary of a major scientific discovery, detailing McMenamin's trip to Namibia, where, with a party that included the renowned paleontologist Adolf Seilacher, the author investigates a spectacular cast made from a colony of fossils in the Nama desert. He chronicles the long, often futile search made by earlier scientists for Ediacara, which began more than a century ago in Europe, North America, and Africa, and the various types of Ediacaran fossils that have been uncovered in the years since. McMenamin concludes that Ediacarans were not animals because they never passed through the ball-shaped embryonic stage peculiar to known animal life forms. But, remarkably, Ediacarans seem to have developed a central nervous system and a brain independent from animal evolution. This startling conclusion has profound implications for our understanding of evolutionary biology, for it indicates that the path toward intelligent life was embarked upon more than once on this planet.
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4.

The Universe, the Eleventh Dimension, and Everything: What We Know and How We Know It » Read Now
by Richard Morris. 234 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Philosophy, Entire Library

From the formation of the universe to the theory of matter to life on earth, Richard Morris delivers a clear and concise picture of what we know, how we know it, and what the limits to future knowledge might be.
5.

The Origin of Life on the Earth » Read Now
by A. I. Oparin, Ann I. Synge. 498 pgs.

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...THE ORIGIN OF LIFE ON THE EARTH THE ORIGIN OF LIFE ON THE EARTH A. I. OPARIN ACTIVE MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY...AND BOYD LTD., EDINBURGH PREFACE MY FIRST WORK on the origin of...
6.

The Earth before History: Man's Origin and the Origin of Life » Read Now
by Edmond Perrier. 350 pgs.

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...Henri Berr, Editor of the " Revue de Synthese Historique " . The Earth before History Mans Origin and the Origin of Life By EDMOND PERRIER Late Professor of Comparative...
7.

Life's Origin: The Beginnings of Biological Evolution » Read Now
by J. William Schopf. 208 pgs.

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Always a controversial and compelling topic, the origin of life on Earth was considered taboo as an area of inquiry for science as recently as the 1950s. Since then, however, scientists working in this area have made remarkable progress, and an overall picture of how life emerged is coming more...
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Always a controversial and compelling topic, the origin of life on Earth was considered taboo as an area of inquiry for science as recently as the 1950s. Since then, however, scientists working in this area have made remarkable progress, and an overall picture of how life emerged is coming more clearly into focus. We now know, for example, that the story of life's origin begins not on Earth, but in the interiors of distant stars. This book brings a summary of current research and ideas on life's origin to a wide audience. The contributors, all of whom received the Oparin/Urey Gold Medal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life, are luminaries in the fields of chemistry, paleobiology, and astrobiology, and in these chapters they discuss their life's work: understanding the what, when, and how of the early evolution of life on Earth. Presented in nontechnical language and including a useful glossary of scientific terms, "Life's Origin "gives a state-of-the-art encapsulation of the fascinating work now being done by scientists as they begin to characterize life as a natural outcome of the evolution of cosmic matter.
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8.

Anthropic Coincidences, in First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life » Read Now
by Stephen M. Barr. 7 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library

...coincidences. I will start with a detailed look at two of the most famous examples, both of which concern the origin of the chemical elements needed for life. All life is...
9.

Are We Alone?: Philosophical Implications of the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life » Read Now
by Paul Davies. 160 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Entire Library
10.

Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology » Read Now
by David Darling. 206 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

To many people, the main question about extraterrestrial life is whether or not it exists. But to the scientific community, that question has already been answered: It does. So confident are scientists of the existence of life on other planets that they've invested serious amounts of money, time and...
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To many people, the main question about extraterrestrial life is whether or not it exists. But to the scientific community, that question has already been answered: It does. So confident are scientists of the existence of life on other planets that they've invested serious amounts of money, time and prestige in finding and studying it. NASA has started an Institute of Astrobiology, for instance, and the University of Washington, Seattle, began in September 1999 to accept graduate students into its Department of Astrobiology.
Life Everywhere is the first book to lay out for a general reader what the new science of astrobiology is all about. It asks the fascinating questions researchers are asking themselves and one another:
-- What is life?
-- How does it originate?
-- How often does life survive once it arises?
-- How does evolution work?
-- What determines whether complex or even intelligent life will emerge from more primitive forms?
Informed by interviews with most of the experts in this nascent subject, Life Everywhere introduces readers to one of the most important scientific disciplines of the coming century.
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11.

The Empire Underground: An Illinois Scientist Is Only Now Being Recognized for What He Discovered 25 Years Ago: A New Life Form whose Existence Challenges our Understanding of Evolution and the Origins of Life, in The Wilson Quarterly » Read Now
by David W. Wolfe. 10 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...and challenged our understanding of evolution and the origin of life. All he had to do was persuade his fellow scientists...provides a molecular-genetic approach to the...