This week we have 34 new papers relevant to the origins of life. Enjoy!

Please note that inclusion of these papers reflects topic, not quality, and that evaluating scientific merit is out of scope for this newsletter.

AI-detection tools (e.g. Pangram) can also be useful when first assessing new publications.

Astrobiology

Could life have been transferred from Mars to Earth? Laboratory and computational simulations of Martian ejecta
Davis et al. — preprint

A framework for evaluating biosignature potential against the abiotic baseline on ocean worlds
Higgins et al. — preprint

The First Remotely Detected Biosignature May Not Be the Most Common: Implications for JWST and HWO
Kopparapu — preprint

The habitability trade-off: Chemical decoupling and quenching in massive galaxies
Mitrašinović et al. — preprint

A Revised Mass and Period for the Habitable Zone super-Earth GJ 3378b: A Planet Straddling the Cosmic Shoreline
Robertson et al. — preprint

False negatives in the search for extraterrestrial life
ten Kate et al. — Nature Astronomy

Elemental Stoichiometry as an Ecological Biosignature with Applications to Life Detection
Vergeli et al. — preprint

The Search for Technosignatures: a Review of Possibilities
Vidal et al. — preprint

Astrochemistry

Observation of spontaneous N-bearing PAH formation using ion trap: a new formation pathway in the interstellar medium
Payra et al. — preprint

Astrophysics

HWO Target Stars and Systems: Activity and Rotation Catalog (ARC) of Potential Target Stars for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
Fetherolf et al. — preprint

A Hycean Interpretation of K2-18b Supported by Photochemical Atmospheric Compositional
Fujisawa et al. — preprint

Biochemistry

Artificial intelligence aided design of peptides with custom secondary structure motifs and reduced amino acid alphabets
Brown et al. — preprint

A synthetic cell microreactor with two types of interacting dynamic DNA-based pores
Fan et al. — Nature Chemistry

XNA Sequencing by Chemical Ligation of DNA Fragments on an Acyclic Artificial Nucleic Acid (L-aTNA)
Kazuno et al. — preprint

Cooperativity, entropy, and effective concentration in DNA origami self-replication
Ni et al. — Science Advances

Membrane Information Organization at the Origin of Life: From Interfaces to Informational Bodies
Rafiei et al. — BioSystems

Biology

Deep-time consistency in proteome elemental composition across cellular and viral life
Benites et al. — preprint

Chemistry

Charge-Selective Adsorption of Organic Molecules in Microfluidic Mg(OH)2 Precipitate Membranes
Cooper et al. — preprint

Prebiotic magnetite enables chirality-magnetic surface feedback
Devienne et al. — preprint

Liquid–liquid phase separation as a driver of abiogenesis and evolution
Grazier et al. — Academia Molecular Biology and Genomics

Analytical Characterization Approaches to Measure Prebiotically Relevant Compounds in High Salinity Impact-Induced Hydrothermal Systems
Herrero Perez et al. — ACS Earth and Space Chemistry

Spin-dependent isotopic fractionation of L-methionine
Vardi et al. — Chem

Geoscience

Maximum Lifetime of the Vegetative Biosphere
Haqq-Misra et al. — preprint

Discovery of stromatolite formation in post-impact hydrothermal lacustrine environments and its implications for early Earth
Lim et al. — Communications Earth & Environment

Gorgona Island (Colombia) as a terrestrial analog of Syrtis Major (Mars): Evidence from geochemical meta-analyses and compositional figures of merit
Tovar et al. — Icarus

Unconventional water and hydrous mineral formation from dry minerals and H2 fluids
Vitale Brovarone et al. — Science Advances

Microbiology

Decoding extremophiles: insights from bioinformatics, machine learning, and data-driven approaches
Chasapi et al. — Briefings in Bioinformatics

Radiation-Resistant Microbes: Pioneers for Life Beyond Earth
Coleine et al. — Current Microbiology

Palaeontology

Early fossil eukaryotes were benthic aerobes
Lechte et al. — Nature

Physics

Function, Complexity and Thermodynamics in Adaptive and Intelligent Soft Matter Systems: An Information-Theoretical Formulation
Attard — preprint

Planetary Sciences

Detection of Zwan-Wolf effect in the ionosphere of Mars
Fowler et al. — Nature Communications

Measurements and predictions of H2 pressure-broadening coefficients of CO2 absorption lines for exoplanet atmosphere studies
Hendaoui et al. — Astronomy & Astrophysics

Mars as an Exoplanet: Lessons from a Planet at the Edge of Habitability
Kane et al. — preprint

Europa’s Lyman-α emissions from HST/STIS observations
Roth et al. — Astronomy & Astrophysics