Life

<P>Examining how life came to be on Earth, this book asks the question: How could life have emerged from a catastrophic event? Primordial Earth was rendered into a blank canvas when it was struck by a Mars-sized object. The discussion in this book illustrates the importance of the high-temperature, chaotic system created in reaction and offers a consequential explanation of how chiral selection of amino acids occurred in the first steps to life.</P> <P>Unlike much of the discussion in origin-of-life literature that favours an RNA-first world, chemistry researcher Peter D. Clark proposes a sequence of events based on their probability: namely, conversion of simple gases into amino acids, their simultaneous chiral selection and polymerization to L-enriched polypeptides, and then synthesis of RNA. Consequential evolution of this chemical system would then lead to the emergence of a codependent polypeptide–RNA chemical landscape and a rudimentary genetic code. Clark suggests that the important step of encapsulating replicating assemblies in a rudimentary cell membrane facilitated phosphate re-cycle – enabling development of life’s universal energy generation machinery, the proton motive force.</P> <P>Applying these hypotheses to the potential for the development of life elsewhere in the solar system, this book demonstrates the possibility of simple life throughout the universe.</P>