OoL digest — October 6
This week we have 46 new papers on the origin of life. Enjoy!
Artificial Life
Towards origins of virtual artificial life: an overview
Stepney — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Astrobiology
Colors of Life in the Clouds: Biopigments of atmospheric microorganisms as a new signature to detect life on planets like Earth
Coelho et al. — preprint
The depletion of the asteroid belt and the impact history of the Earth
Fernandez — preprint
Detection of organic compounds in freshly ejected ice grains from Enceladus’s ocean
Khawaja et al. — Nature Astronomy
Solar Hegemony: M-Dwarfs Are Unlikely to Host Observers Such as Ourselves
Kipping — preprint
Other Earths, Gaian bottlenecks and Darwinized Gaias
Lineweaver et al. — Philosophical Transactions B
Prospects for detecting signs of life on exoplanets in the JWST era
Seager et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Modelling the effect of stellar metallicity on the XUV evolution of low-mass stars and its impact on exoplanet atmospheres/habitability
See et al. — preprint
Planning Considerations Related to Contamination Control for the Return and Analysis of Martian Samples
Sessions et al. — Astrobiology
Starshades as technosignatures in direct imaging phase curves: Application to the Habitable Worlds Observatory targets
Skoglund et al. — preprint
General Relativity Can Prevent a Runaway Greenhouse on Potentially Habitable Planets Orbiting White Dwarfs
Stafne et al. — preprint
Exoplanets beyond the Conservative Habitable Zone: II. Occurrence
Wandel — preprint
A Novel Metric for Assessing Climatological Surface Habitability
Woodward et al. — The Planetary Science Journal
Ice gliding diatoms establish record-low temperature limits for motility in a eukaryotic cell
Zhang et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Astrophysics
Observation of undepleted phosphine in the atmosphere of a low-temperature brown dwarf
Burgasser et al. — Science
A first look at rocky exoplanets with JWST
Kreidberg et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Characterization of exoplanets in the James Webb Space Telescope era
Lunine et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Extreme Geomagnetic Storm on Early Earth Induced by Corotating Interaction Regions from the Young Sun
Sur et al. — preprint
Biochemistry
Before LUCA: unearthing the chemical roots of metabolism
Carbonell et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
A Universal Method for Quantifying Elemental Sulfur and Selenium in Biological Matrices
Eldakra et al. — preprint
Protopeptide backbone affects assembly in aqueous solutions
Fisher et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Planetary sources of bio-essential nutrients on a prebiotic world
Galloway et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Reconstituting alternative life using the test-bed of cell-free systems
Hofmann et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Can the origin of biosynthetic routes be explained by a Frankenstein’s monster-like spontaneous assembly of prebiotic reactants?
Negrón-Mendoza et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Protocellular energy transduction, information and fitness
Reinholt Thomsen et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Biology
Science of the gaps
Smith et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Origins of life: the possible and the actual
Solé et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Generalizing the central dogma as a cross-hierarchical principle of biology
Takeuchi et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Biophysics
Dynamical interactions among protocell populations: Implications for membrane-mediated chemical evolution
Das et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Computational Biology
Modelling the prebiotic origins of regulation and agency in evolving protocell ecologies
Shirt-Ediss et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Geoscience
Exomorphic Catalysis: A Discipline Dedicated to Energetic Disequilibria and the Activation of Life-Potential in Non-Terrestrial Environments
Lloyd — preprint
Mathematical Biology
Information and the living tree of life: A theory of measurement grounded in biology
Hudnall — preprint
Is the emergence of life and of agency expected?
Kauffman et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
How hard is it to encapsulate life? The general constraints on encapsulation
Kempes et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Microbiology
Assessment of methods for evaluating structural stability of cell envelope fragments in hypersaline brines as biosignatures of ancient microbial life
Bourmancé et al. — Scientific Reports
Eukaryogenesis From FECA to LECA: Radical Steps Along the Way
Speijer — BioEssays
A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers
Szánthó et al. — Nature Ecology & Evolution
Palaeontology
Chemical characterization of C31 sterols from sponges and Neoproterozoic fossil sterane counterparts
Shawar et al. — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers
Szánthó et al. — Nature Ecology & Evolution
Physics
Thermodynamics of Darwinian selection in molecular replicators
Kolchinsky — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Bifurcations and phase transitions in the origins of life
Solé et al. — Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Planetary Sciences
Characterization of ferric hydroxysulfate on Mars and implications of the geochemical environment supporting its formation
Bishop et al. — Nature Communications
Protracted core formation and impact disruptions shaped the earliest outer Solar System planetesimals
Grewal et al. — Science Advances
Stratigraphic Evidence of Backwater Morphodynamics and Lowland River Deltas in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars
Hughes et al. — Geophysical Research Letters
The late Miocene 10Be anomaly and the possibility of a supernova
Maconi et al. — Astronomy & Astrophysics
Synthetic Biology
DNA-based Transmembrane Receptor-mediated Contact-dependent Signal Transduction between Artificial Cells
Aye et al. — preprint