Timeline of biology and organic chemistry

 

Before 1600

Χημικοί έχουν ανακαλύψει μια ευλογοφανή συνταγή για την πρώιμη ζωή στη Γη

Επιστήμη

11.1.2018

Χημικοί, στο Ερευνητικό Ινστιτούτο Scripps (TSRI) έχουν αναπτύξει μια συναρπαστική νέα θεωρία για το πώς πρέπει να έχει αρχίσει η ζωή στη Γη. Τα πειράματά τους, που περιγράφονται στο περιοδικό Nature Communications, δείχνουν ότι βασικές χημικές αντιδράσεις που υποστηρίζουν την ζωή σήμερα θα μπορούσαν να έχουν πραγματοποιηθεί με συστατικά που πιθανώς να ήταν παρόντα στον πλανήτη πριν από τέσσερα δισεκατομμύρια χρόνια.

Making Sense of the Chemistry That Led to Life on Earth

 

Gustave Caillebotte: Villers-sur-Mer – 1880

 

 

By NICHOLAS WADE, The New York Times, MAY 4, 2015

 

It was the actions of Jupiter and Saturn that quite inadvertently created life on Earth — not the gods of the Roman pantheon, but the giant planets, which once orbited much closer to the sun.

RNA World 2.0

© KEVIN HAND

 

Most scientists believe that ribonucleic acid played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, but the versatile molecule isn’t the whole story.

By Jef Akst | March 1, 2014

The ubiquity and diverse functionality of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in today’s world suggest that the information polymer could well have been the leading player early on in the establishment of life on Earth, and, in theory, it’s a logical basis for primitive life. One can readily imagine that RNA, as a catalytic molecule capable of serving as a template for its own replication, might have reproduced itself and grown exponentially in the primordial environment. Perhaps such an RNA-based proto–life-form even replicated with an appropriate level of fidelity to allow natural selection to begin directing its evolution.

Five insights challenging science’s unshakable ‘truths’

 

Methyl groups, which affect our genes, often come from what we eat. Photograph: Science Photo Library

 

If you thought dying of loneliness was just an old wives’ tale, or that genetic inheritance is fixed – think again. Michael Brooks on science’s most unexpected findings

Michael Brooks, The Observer, Sunday 29 June 2014

Ideas for Improving Science Education

IVΑNYI GRάNWALD, Bιla, In the Valley, c. 1900, Magyar Nemzeti Galιria, Budapest

 

 

· By Claudia Dreifus, The New York Times, September 2, 2013

If you could make one change to improve science education in the United States, what would it be? Science Times asked that question of 19 Americans — scientists, educators, students — with a stake in the answer. Their responses follow.

The Big Squeeze

 

Photographs by A. Sharma, above right, and from top to bottom, at left, Jinfu Shu, R. E. Cohen and D. G. Isaak, M. Somayazulu and Yue Meng

 

The Carnegie Institution for Science can observe how organic substances, like oxalic acid dihydrate, right, react under pressure, born of a mission to study Earth’s interior. Diamond anvils, top left, were used on ferrous iron oxide, xenon and oxygen, forming different structures.

By KENNETH CHANG, The New York Times, December 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — In a recurring comic bit, David Letterman used to place household items — a plate of jelly doughnuts, a six-pack of beer — in an 80-ton hydraulic press, gleefully watching as the items squirted, exploded and disintegrated.