The importance of autocatalysis spans from practical applications such as in chemically
amplified photoresists, to autocatalysis playing a fundamental role in evolution as well as a …

Life is that which replicates and evolves, but there is no consensus on how life emerged. We
advocate a systems protobiology view, whereby the first replicators were assemblies of …

This article proposes that biologically plausible theories of behavior can be constructed by
following a method of “phylogenetic refinement,” whereby they are progressively elaborated …

In the hard sciences, which can often feel out of grasp for many lay readers, there are" great
thinkers" who go far beyond the equations, formulas, and research. Minds such as Stephen …

Modern cells embody metabolic networks containing thousands of elements and form
autocatalytic sets of molecules that produce copies of themselves. How the first self …

Prior research on evolutionary mechanisms during the origin of life has mainly assumed the
existence of populations of discrete entities with information encoded in genetic polymers …

The endoergic nature of protein and nucleic acid assembly in aqueous media presents two
questions that are fundamental to the understanding of life's origins:(i) how did the polymers …

Background Our current understanding of evolution is so tightly linked to template-
dependent replication of DNA and RNA molecules that the old idea from Oparin of a self …

Abstract The European AstRoMap project (supported by the European Commission Seventh
Framework Programme) surveyed the state of the art of astrobiology in Europe and beyond …

Though Darwinian theory dramatically revolutionized biological understanding, its strictly
biological focus has resulted in a widening conceptual gulf between the biological and …