Biology 2e: chemistry of life

Build the cell-biological background needed to distinguish mechanism from an origin hypothesis.

How to study this source

• How did chemistry become life?

  backgroundChemical bonds, macromolecules and energy

  Review bonds, chemical reactions and the role of energy before reading the origin scenarios.

• Where did complex cells come from?

  backgroundNamed section and worked examples

  Build the cell-biological background needed to distinguish mechanism from an origin hypothesis.

• How do cells make a body?

  backgroundNamed section and worked examples

  Build the cell-biological background needed to distinguish mechanism from an origin hypothesis.

Ideas and questions

Read background definitions when a term blocks the argument. Then return to the source and reconstruct its claim in your own words.

Read alongside, read against

• The Origin of Membrane Bioenergetics

  Nick Lane · William Martin. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• The Physiology and Habitat of the Last Universal Common Ancestor

  Madelene C. Weiss et al.. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• Template-Directed Synthesis of a Genetic Polymer in a Model Protocell

  Sheref S. Mansy et al.. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• Protocells and RNA Self-Replication

  Gerald F. Joyce · Jack W. Szostak. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.

• The Eightfold Path to Non-Enzymatic RNA Replication

  Jack W. Szostak. Compare assumptions, evidence and scope with the source above. These are editorial companions, not necessarily direct responses.