Lifelines Beyond the Genome: Why Chickens Come Before Eggs

Steven PR Rose, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Published online: April 2001

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0003434

Contrary to the prevailing view that life began on Earth with the emergence of so-called self-replicating molecules – DNA and RNA – it can be argued that cells, and mechanisms for generating cellular energy, must have been present before replication in the sense we now understand it could have arisen.

Keywords: cells; membranes; nucleic acids; autopoies; metabolic webs; abiotic synthesis

 References
    book Cairns-Smith AG (1985) Seven Clues to the Origin of Life: a Scientific Detective Story. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
    book Crick FHC (1981) Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. London: Macdonald.
    book Haldane JBS (1929) The Origin of Life. Reprinted in Science and Life. London: Pemberton Publishing, 1968.
    book Kauffman S (1995) At Home in the Universe. London: Viking.
    Kauffman S (1996) Even peptides do it. Nature 382: 496–497.
    book Lovelock JE (1979) Gaia: a New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Mann S and Ozin GA (1996) Synthesis of inorganic materials with complex form. Nature 382: 313–318.
    Margulis L and West O (1993) Gaia and the Colonisation of Mars. GSA Today 3: 277–280.
    Miller SL (1953) A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth conditions. Science 117: 528–529.
    book Oparin AI (1938) The Origin of Life on the Earth. London: Macmillan.
    book Rose SPR (1997) Lifelines: Biology, Freedom, Determinism. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press.
    book Williams RJP and Frausto da Silva JJR (1996) The Natural Selection of the Chemical Elements. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Further Reading
    book Margulis L (1998) The Symbiotic Planet. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
    book Maturana HR and Varela FJ (1998) The Tree of Knowledge: the Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala.
    book Woolfson A (2000) Life Without Genes. London: HarperCollins.

Related Sub-Topics:

Evolutionary Genomics | Molecular Evolution | Origin of Life | Evolution: Theories and Ideas | Evolution of Coding and Functional Modules | General Molecular Biology
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Article Title: Lifelines Beyond the Genome: Why Chickens Come Before Eggs
 
How to Cite close
Rose, Steven PR(Apr 2001) Lifelines Beyond the Genome: Why Chickens Come Before Eggs. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0003434]