Diff for "EarthExceptional"

Differences between revisions 12 and 14 (spanning 2 versions)

Is Earth Exceptional?

Chemistry escapes me. Too many un-descriptive "historical" names for processes, substances, molecules. Hence chapters 2, 3, and 4 are as difficult to internalize as lists of the crowned heads of Europe (and the wars they started, won, and mostly lost)

p001 Chapter 1: A Freak Chemical Accident or a Cosmic Imperative?
p022 Galileo: "I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence, wishes us to abandon their use"

p025 Chapter 2: The Origin of Life: The RNA World
p033 Ribonuclease P !RNase P
- broad class of RNA+Protein molecules that cut specific cellular RNAs in specific ways
p033 The RNA does the work, the attached protein neutralizes the large negative charge of the RNA molecule
p033 Sidney Altman and colleagues added Mg++ magnesium ions, achieving similar neutralization
p034 discoveries of many self-cleaving RNAs that catalyze chemical reactions
p034 Walter Gilbert catchphrase RNA World
p037 Yale biochemist Thomas Steitz The ribosome is a ribozyme
p038 RNA World replaced by more stable DNA

p039 Chapter 3: The Origin of Life: From Chemistry to Biology
p043 formose synthesis, sugar from formaldehyde
p046 British chemist John Sutherland
p048 pH buffer and catalyst makes 2-aminooxazole 2AO synthesis efficient, systems chemistry example
p048 2AO plus glyceraldehyde produces [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribose_aminooxazoline | RAO
p057 Where did SO₂ come from? Volcanic eruptions. Pinatubo released enough SO₂ haze to cool Earth for 2 years.

p119 Chapter 6: Putting it All Together: From Astrophysics and Geology to Chemistry and Biology
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p136
p136
p137
p138

p219 Chapter 10: Life as We Don't Know It: The Design of Natural and Unnatural Life-Forms
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p225

p287 Selected Further Reading
p301 Lustin-Yaeger et. al. 2018, "Detecting Ocean Glint on Exoplanets Using Multiphase Mapping," Astronomical Journal 156 no. 6 December
- summary pdf

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+ . Chemistry escapes me.  Too many un-descriptive "historical" names for processes, substances, molecules.  Hence chapters 2, 3, and 4 are as difficult to internalize as lists of the crowned heads of Europe (and the wars they started, won, and mostly lost)
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