Darwinian Evolution of Molecules: Physical and Earth-Historical Perspective of the Origin of Life

ISBN-13: 9789811087233 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 143 str.

Hiromoto Nakazawa

Opis

On the basis of thermodynamic considerations and the Earth's historical processes, this book argues the physical inevitability of life's generation and evolution, i.e., Why did life generate?

Spis treści

Preface

Chapter 1. The Dynamic Earth: A Recent Concept Necessary for the Study of the Origin of Life

1-1 Continental Drift Theory in the Early Twentieth Century

1-2 Revival of the Continental Drift Theory

1-3 Plate Tectonics: A Dynamically Flowing Mantle

1-4 Plume Tectonics: A Recent Concept of the Earth

Chapter 2.  Why did Life Generate? Why does Life Evolve? Physical Perspective of the Origin of Life

2-1 Does the generation and evolution of life violate the basic principle of physics?

2-2 Physical inevitability of generation and evolution of life

Chapter 3. What is the Ultimate Ancestor? Evidence from Fossils and Gene Analyses

3-1 The oldest fossil of “life”?

3-2 The “ultimate ancestor” explored by gene analysis

3-3 A gene must be a “molecule” governed by quantum physics

Chapter 4. “Miller-Urey Experiment” in the Recent Picture of the Early Earth

4-1 Traditional hypotheses on the origin of bio-organic molecules

4-2 An overview: Cooling history of the Hadean and Archean Earth

4-3 At 4.0 ~ 3.8 b.y.a., reductive atmosphere occurred locally and temporarily!

4-4 Evaporation of minerals by meteorite collisions with ocean: an experimental simulation

4-5 Hypothesis: mass production of ammonia during meteorite ocean collisions on the early Earth

Chapter 5. Origin of Organic Molecules and Natural Selection of Bioorganic Molecules

5-1 “The big-bang” of organic molecules

5-2 Experimental confirmation of the hypothesis, “the Big-bang” of organic molecules

5-3 Natural selection of “bioorganic molecules”

Chapter 6. Molecular Evolution in Deep Subterranean Regions

6-1 Dispelling the myth that “an ancient sea was the mother of life”

6-2 A hypothesis, “Molecular Evolution in Deep Subterranean Regions”

6-3 Experimental confirmation of the hypothesis, "Molecular evolution in Deep Subterranean Regions"

6-4 Homochirality of bioorganic molecules, from the view of natural selection of molecules

Chapter 7. The last stage of molecular evolution to the birth of life: Individuals, metabolism, and heredity

7-1 Geological situation of tectonic plate edges at about 4.0 b.y.a.

7-2 Appearance of "individuals" and vesicle fusion

7-3 The final stage leading to the birth of life -“The Origin of Species” that C. Darwin did not know-

7-4 On the Genetic takeover hypothesis and the Fe-S world hypothesis

Chapter 8. Summary: The Evolutionary Phylogenetic Tree of the Earth’s Light Elements

8-1 Life occurred in subterranean regions and underwent adaptive radiation in ocean

8-2 Earth, the watery planet where life generated and evolves

O autorze

Hiromoto Nakazawa is an emeritus fellow at the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, and a fellow of the Japan Geoscience Union. He is also a former chairman of The Clay Science Society of Japan (2001–2002).  He devoted most of his research time to X-ray crystallography while at the National Institute for Research in Inorganic Materials (NIRIM), Japan. As a materials scientist, he has been awarded the Crystallographic Society of Japan Prize (1978) for the identification and study of new superstructures of iron sulfides using X-ray diffraction and high-resolution electron microscopy. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon as well as several other prizes for his invention of the scanning X-ray microscope using the X-ray guide tube (2000). His curiosity regarding the origin of life from his student days brought him to the study of clay minerals as materials at the interface between the inorganic and organic realms during his tenure as a managing researcher at NIRIM (1985–2000).  While a professor at Tohoku University, Japan (2001), he commenced his experimental studies of the origin of life together with his students and subsequently proposed a new scenario for the origin of life on the Earth based on their recent results (2006, 2014). In 2011, he received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon.