Abiogenesis: The Origin of Life

Image of the book 'Spark of Life' by Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada

Abiogenesis is about the origin of life. Evolution, technically, is about what happened after life arose on Earth. Life origins studies proceed under a number of hypotheses and remain very tentative during this early period of investigation. A recent summary of research is in The Spark of Life : Darwin and the Primeval Soup by Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada. You can read reviews and order this book online at Amazon.com or at BN.com.

What to Read About Abiogenesis

How Life Evolves

Explore How Life Evolves on the Molecular, Organism, and Ecosystem Levels with NASA

How the Scum of the Earth Led to Advanced Life

Your scummy ancestors had the planet to themselves up to about 2.2 billion years ago. These single-celled organisms were the only things that could survive on a diet nearly bereft of oxygen.

Pre-biotic Earth

What a Gas!

Radiation of the First Animals: Narrative Index

A University of California at Berkeley Lecture

Thermophiles and Early Life

Because thermophiles are ancient, and because they prefer the steamy conditions that were typical of the early Earth, many scientists think they may also tell us about the origin of life itself. Life at High Temperatures is about thermophiles at Yellowstone National Park. Other Extreme Earth Life discusses scientists' suggestions that life on Earth may have originated during the planet's earliest periods, some three billion or more years ago. Includes a Chart of Extremophiles. A discussion of earliest known life forms is at Natural History of the Archaea.

Cell Origin Theories

Endosymbiotic Theory of Eukaryote Evolution

This was first proposed by Lynn Margulis in her 1981 book Symbiosis in Cell Evolution.

Evolution of the Bacterial Flagella

Michael Behe nominates the bacterial flagella as "irreducibly complex" and unable (or unlikely) to be produced via evolution. A microbiologist responds.

Giardia lamblia

Biology & microscopy of what some scientists have called a missing link in the evolution of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotic cells.

The Origin of Cellular Life

Sidney W. Fox, a man some colleagues say should have won the Nobel Prize, showed how living cells can be formed from inanimate material.

Origins of the Eukaryote Cell

Aspects of the autogenous and endosymbiotic hypotheses.