Chemical Evolution: Physics of the Origin and Evolution of Life

Section 1. General Overview.- Cosmic evolution, life and man.- Experimental retracement of terrestrial orign of an excitable cell: Was it predictable?.- Section 2. Origins.- Cosmology: The Universe in Evolution.- From cosmic formation of chiral bioorganics in interstellar dust to comet seeds of life’s origins: Are 1025 chances enough?.- Strategies for the search of life in the universe.- Section 3. From Geophysics to Prebiotic Chemistry.- Age of the Isua supracrustal sequence of West Greenland: A possible repository for early life.- Clays as natural catalyst in prebiotic processes.- Role of transient and stable molecules in chemical evolution.- Lightning associated to Archean volcanic ash-gas clouds.- Section 4. Physiochemical Aspects.- Evolutionary, kinetic and thermodynamic aspects on the bioenergetics of inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP).- Mineral metal sulphur clusters as a testbed for studies of evolutionary continuity.- Thermal peptides as the initial genetic system.- Origin of nucleic acids.- Origin of fatty acids.- Section 5. Biophysical Aspects: General Problems.- Oxygen and the rapid evolution of life on Mars.- First steps in eukaryogenesis: Physical phenomena in the origin and evolution of chromosome structure.- Biological aspects of the origin of life: Open questions in eukaryogeneis.- A putative living fossil of the RNA world is likely to be of recent origin.- Thermodynamic nature of the biological evolution: the model and the reality.- Boltzmann dynamics on the primitive earth about 3.8 billion years ago.- Thermodynamic and kinetic properties of prebiological open systems.- Section 6. Biophysical Aspects: Biomolecular Chirality.- On the determination of the physical origin of homochirality in life.- Possible role ofphosphoryl group excitation in chemical evolution.- Basic models of chemical evolution of life: The minimum evolving system.- Ab initio calculation of molecular energies including parity violating interactions.- Section 7. Evolutionary Aspects.- Prebiotic chemical evolution and the Darwinian Revolution.- La Grande Galerie de l’Evolution of Paris: The only museum in the world entirely devoted to biological evolution.- Section 8. Information Theory.- New approaches in mathematical biology: Information theory and molecular machines.- Information-processing genes: Molecular biology in the computational paradigm.- Section 9. Communication.- Progress in searches for extraterrestrial intelligent radio signals.- SETI from the moon. A case for a XXIst century SETI-dedicated lunar farside crater.- Section 10. Instrumentation in Exobiology and Mars Exploration.- In situ epxloration of Titan and cometary nucleus: implication for planetary exobiology.- Looking for the homochiral signature of life: the SETH Cigar.- Strategy for the detection of bioorganic compounds on Mars.- Martian soil analysis.- Section 11. Special Session.- 1. Excerpts from letters read at the Conference;.- 2. Speakers from scientific academies and foundations of which Cyril Ponnamperuma was a member.