Diff for "EarthExceptional"

Differences between revisions 14 and 16 (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.

p083 Chapter 5: The Origin of Life: The Road to the Protocell
p087 dipolar membrane molecules amphiphilic, hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends, self-assembly of bilayer membranes
p087 early Earth environment origin difficult to explain
p089 fatty acids spontaneously assemble into bilayers in water, model protocells
p091 Alexander Oparin proposed coaverate aggregates of polymers
p091 RNA molecules might have "colonized" the surface of mineral particles, but attraction forces distort them
p092 condensation of nucleotides into chains is endothermic in water, hydrolyzing separation exothermic
p093 Drying in warm CO₂ can polymerize, but carbonic acid breaks bonds
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p119 Chapter 6: Putting it All Together: From Astrophysics and Geology to Chemistry and Biology
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p219 Chapter 10: Life as We Don't Know It: The Design of Natural and Unnatural Life-Forms
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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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+ .p087 dipolar membrane molecules [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiphile | amphiphilic ]], hydrophobic and hydrophilic ends, self-assembly of bilayer membranes
 .p087 early Earth environment origin difficult to explain
 .p089 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid | fatty acids ]] spontaneously assemble into bilayers in water, model protocells
 .p091 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Oparin | Alexander Oparin ]] proposed [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coacervate | coaverate ]] aggregates of polymers
 .p091 RNA molecules might have "colonized" the surface of mineral particles, but attraction forces distort them
 .p092 condensation of nucleotides into chains is endothermic in water, hydrolyzing separation exothermic
 .p093 Drying in warm CO₂ can polymerize,  but carbonic acid breaks bonds