Main description:

How life originated from the inanimate mixture of organic and inorganic compounds on the priomordial earth remains one of the great unknowns in science. This origin of life, or abiogenesis, continues to be examined in the context of the conditions and materials required for natural life to have begun on Earth both theoretically and experimentally. This book provides a broad but in-depth analysis of the latest discoveries in prebiotic chemsitry from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale; utilising experimental insight to provide a bottom up approach to plausibly explaining how life arose. With contributions from global leaders, this book is an ideal reference for postgraduate students and a single source of comprehensive information on the latest technical and theoretical advancements for researchers in a variety of fields from astrochemistry and astrophysics to organic chemistry and evolution.

Contents:

Origin of the Universe and Planetary Systems; Geoastronomy: Rocky Planets as the Lavosier-Lomonosov Bridge from the Non-living to the Living World; First Steps of Prebiotic Chemistry Catalyzed by Minerals and Metals; Prebiotic Condensing Agents; Soft Matter Science in Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origins of Life; The Miller-Urey Experiment's Impact on Modern Approaches to Prebiotic Chemistry; From Amino Acids to Peptides Before the Coming of Ribosomes; Prebiotic Chemistry of Nucleobases and Nucleotides; Prebiotic Amphiphiles: The Systems Chemistry Perspective; The Handy Formamide Model System for Prebiotic Chemistry; How Did the Proteome Emerge from Pre-biotic Chemistry?; Investigating Prebiotic Protocells for an Understanding of the Origin of Life: A Comprehensive Perspective Combining the Chemical, Evolutionary and Historical Aspects; Toward Evolution in Chemical Reaction Networks; New Directions for an Experimental Approach to the Chemistry of the Origin of Life