Chapter 1: The Origin of Life

Review Questions for Chapter 1

Introduction

• Introduction to Cosmology
• Origin of Universe: Big Bang Theory
• Current Esimate: The Big Bang Was About 12 Billion Years Ago
• How Did the Elements Form?
• The Life Cycle of Stars
• NASA's The Origin and Evolution of Life Web Site or Here
• Selected Other NASA Educational Sites: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Formation of the Solar System

• Formation of Solar System: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7
• Views of the Solar System
• Geological Time Scale

Life on Planetary Surfaces

• Dr. Awramik on the Early Earth
• Lecture Notes on Earth's Cycles
• Lecture Notes on Early Life
• Prof. Cowen's Update: Is or Was There Life On Mars?
• Stimulating Book by Cornell University Biochemist, Thomas Gold, The Deep Hot Biosphere at

Reconstructing the Origin of Life

• Interview with Exobiology Pioneer Dr. Stanley Miller
• Summary of Dr. Miller's Most Recent Primordial Soup Hypothesis
• Dr. Stanley Awramik on the How Life Began
• Stanley Miller's Primordial Soup Experiment and Spark-discharge Reaction Apparatus
• Links to the Origins of Life
• Ask an Astrobiologist about Life Origins

Toward the First Living Cell

• Carl Zimmer Article, The First Cell
• RNA and the Origins of Life
• Ribozymes
• Great Book by John Maynard Smith & Eörs Szathmáry, The Origins of Life...
  or Their More Technical Book on This Subject, The Major Transitions in Evolution
• A Book by J. William Schopf, Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils.
  

All at



Visit the Source of the Images of the Deep Sea Hot "Black Smoker" Vent
and the Gutless Hot Vent Worms, Riftia, Hosts of Chemosynthetic Symbiotic
Microbes, at Nova's Living at Extremes Website

Where Did Life Evolve?

• Good Lecture Outline by Bruce Walsh et al. on Origin of Life
• Clay is a mineral with a sheet-like lattice structure that promotes the interaction of molecules
• The Three Domains of Life
• A Good Overview of Microbial Biology
• A Good Overview of Microbial Diversity and Phylogeny
• Excellent Lecture Notes by James Brown on Microbial Diversity
• Kenneth Todar's Microbes Website
• The Three Domains Compared
• Carl Zimmer Articles on Triumph of the Archaea and Getting Closer to Life's Dawn
• Introduction to Archaea
• Methanococcus Genome, First Archaea Completely Sequenced
• Press Release on Completion of Methanococcus Genome Sequencing
• Another Archaea Genome Being Sequenced
• Up-to-Date Listing of Sequenced Genomes
• Dr. Carl Woese Home Page
• Pace Lab Microbial Links
• Wikipedia on Extremophiles (see also 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6)
• Introduction to Crenarchaeota: The Most Heat-tolerant Archaea
• Comparison of the Thermophilicity of Heat-tolerant Microbes
• Example of Euryarchaea: The Other Large Group of Archaea
• Thermal environments in Yellowstone National Park
• Image of Yellowstone Hot Spring Archaea
• Images of Hot Smoker Vent Habitat for Archaea in Deep Sea
• Nova's Feature on Life in Black Smoker Vents in Deep Sea
• Unusual and Extreme Microbes
• The Notion of Cosmic Ancestry
• NASA's Mars Exploration Program
• Martian Life Forms
• A More Dubious Martian Life Form
• Life on Loki

Energy and Life

• ATP/ADP Energy Cycle
• Methanogens and Other Microbes
• Cellular Metabolism and Fermentation
• Fermentation
• Photosynthesis

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The links on this page were first compiled in Fall, 1998, last checked on 8/22/07 and last updated on 8/22/07. If you find broken links or if you find additional cool sites that are appropriate,
please send them and the Web address for this page to Prof. Eernisse.
This page © D.J. Eernisse, 1998-2007.