Abstract
Any theory purporting to account for life cannot avoid facing the fundamental question about how life originated on this planet. One of the most physically realistic models of the origin of biological information (and hence of life) that I know of was proposed by P. W. Anderson and his coworkers (1983, 1987) (see Fig. 13.1). The model was based on thermal cycling (i.e., the cyclical changes of the temperature on the surface of the earth due to its daily rotation around its axis) of an RNA “soup” presumed to be present somewhere on the primordial earth surface some 3.5 billion years ago. The following quotation from Anderson (1987) describes the key ideas behind his model:
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Anderson, P.W.: Suggested model of prebiotic evolution: the use of Chaos. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 80, 386–3390 (1983)
Anderson, P.W.: Computer modeling of prebiotic evolution: general theoretical ideas on the origin of biological information. Comments Mol. Cell. Biophys. 4(2), 99–108 (1987)
Haken, H.: Synergetics, an Introduction: Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions and Self-Organization in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, 3 (rev. enl)th edn. Springer-Verlag, New York (1983)
Ji, S.: Energy and negentropy in enzymic catalysis. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 227, 419–437 (1974a)
Ji, S.: The principles of ligand-protein interactions and their application to the mechanism of oxidative phosphorylation. In: Yagi, K. (ed.) Structure and Function of Biomembranes, pp. 25–37. Japan Scientific Societies Press, Tokyo (1979)
Ji, S.: Biocybernetics: a machine theory of biology. In: Ji, S. (ed.) Molecular Theories of Cell Life and Death, pp. 1–237. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick (1991)
Ji, S.: The linguistics of DNA: words, sentences, grammar, phonetics, and semantics. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 870, 411–417 (1999b)
Ji, S.: Free energy and information contents of Conformons in proteins and DNA. Biosystems 54, 107–130 (2000)
Pattee, H.: How does a molecule become a message? In: Lang, A. (ed.) Communication in Development, pp. 1–16. Academic Press, New York (1969)
Pattee, H.: Evolving self-reference: matter, symbols, and semantic closure. Commun. and Cogn. – Artif. Intell 12(1–2), 9–27 (1995)
Pattee, H.: The physics of symbols and the evolution of semiotic controls. In: Coombs M.,Sulcoski M.(eds) Proceedings of the 1996 International Workshop on Control Mechanisms for Complex Systems, Issues of Measurement & Semiotic Analysis (1996)
Zeldovich, K.B., Chen, P., Shakhnovich, B.E., Shakhnovich, E.I.: A first- principles model of early evolution: emergence of gene families, species, and preferred protein folds. PLoS Comput. Biol. 3(7), e139 (2007a). doi:10.1371 /journal.pcbi.0030139
Zeldovich, K.B., Chen, P., Shakhnovich, E.I.: Protein stability imposes limits on organism complexity and speed of molecular evolution. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 104(41), 16152–16157 (2007b)
Zeldovich, K.B., Shakhnovich, E.I.: Understanding protein evolution: from proteins physics to Darwinian selection. Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 59, 105–127 (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ji, S. (2012). Mechanisms of the Origin of Life. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2152-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2152-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-2151-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-2152-8
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)