Static electrification is among the earliest of the sciences, well known to us all and with
widespread and important consequences. Yet, its most basic foundations remain poorly …

The fundamental roles that peptides and proteins play in today's biology makes it almost
indisputable that peptides were key players in the origin of life. Insofar as it is appropriate to …

How and where did life on Earth originate? To date, various environments have been
proposed as plausible sites for the origin of life. However, discussions have focused on a …

The origin of life is still one of humankind's great mysteries. At the transition between
nonliving and living matter, protocells, initially featureless aggregates of abiotic matter, gain …

The search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our Solar System is currently guided by our
understanding of terrestrial biology and its associated biosignatures. The observed …

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

Antibiotics are chemotherapeutic agents, which have been a very powerful tool in the clinical
management of bacterial diseases since the 1940s. However, benefits offered by these …

Antibiotic-resistant pathogens are profoundly important to human health, but the
environmental reservoirs of resistance determinants are poorly understood. The origins of …

The electrostatic charge that is generated when two materials are contacted or rubbed and
then separated is a well-known physical process that has been studied for more than 2500 …

The search for traces of life is one of the principal objectives of Mars exploration. Central to
this objective is the concept of habitability, the set of conditions that allows the appearance …