Introduction | p. 1 |
The Early History of Bioenergy | p. 15 |
Energy-Related Phase Transitions Toward Life | p. 15 |
Catalysis | p. 16 |
Reflexive Activity | p. 20 |
Energy Transduction | p. 25 |
Energy Control Mechanisms | p. 31 |
Quantitative Consequences of Energy Control Mechanisms | p. 33 |
Distribution of Energy Input | p. 34 |
The Origin of Cell Boundaries and Metabolism | p. 39 |
The Make-up of Life's Boundaries | p. 42 |
The Early Evolution of Cellular Boundaries | p. 44 |
Outcomes of an Early Boundary | p. 50 |
Systems Without Defined Boundaries | p. 51 |
Systems with Non-Specialized Boundaries | p. 51 |
Self-Assembly of Specialized Boundaries | p. 52 |
Boundary-Derived Properties of Life | p. 53 |
Coupling of Spatial Seclusion with a Reflexive Activity | p. 55 |
The Origin of Metabolism | p. 57 |
The Origin of Early Specificity. The Order, Complexity and Diversity of Life | p. 63 |
Order | p. 63 |
Complexity | p. 64 |
Diversity | p. 67 |
Specificity | p. 69 |
Specificity of Polymer-Based Life | p. 70 |
The Origin of Specificity | p. 72 |
Transition from External to Internal Control | p. 75 |
Major Events in the Early History of Specificity | p. 76 |
The Origin of Feedback Mechanisms as a Source of Internal Stability | p. 76 |
The Origin of Forward Regulation | p. 78 |
Consequences of Internal Regulation | p. 78 |
Forced Oscillations and Periodic Clocks | p. 79 |
Specificity-Related Phase Transitions Toward Life | p. 79 |
Specificity-Related Minimal Requirements of Life | p. 80 |
The Origin of Handedness | p. 81 |
Chirality and Life | p. 83 |
Natural Sources of Chirality | p. 85 |
Evolutionary Steps Toward Biological Chirality | p. 89 |
Handedness-Related Steps Toward Life | p. 93 |
The Early History of Bio-Information | p. 95 |
Early Sources of Bio-Information | p. 100 |
Contextual vs. Nominative Information and Explicit vs. Cryptic Information | p. 102 |
Postulates of the Early Evolution of Bio-Information | p. 109 |
The Contextual Information Era | p. 110 |
The Mineral-to-Organic Era | p. 110 |
The Organic-to-Organic Era | p. 112 |
The Emergence of Encryption | p. 115 |
The Rise of the DNA World | p. 117 |
Information-Related Fundamental Phase Transitions Toward Life | p. 119 |
Minimal Requirements for the Emergence of Bio-Information | p. 120 |
The Purpose-Like Nature of Life | p. 121 |
Assembling the Early Puzzle of Life | p. 139 |
The First Step Toward Life: Coupling Catalysis with Reflexive Activity | p. 142 |
Self-Assembly | p. 143 |
Seclusion Within Specialized Boundaries and the Origin of Metabolism | p. 144 |
Probabilistic Jumps Toward Catalytic Specificity | p. 145 |
Feedback Regulation | p. 145 |
Internalization of Minimal Specificity | p. 145 |
Control over Chirality | p. 146 |
Inheritable Variability | p. 147 |
Replication | p. 148 |
The Last Step Toward Life: The Emergence of Encryption | p. 150 |
The Non-Life-to-Life Transition | p. 150 |
Cosmochemical and Geochemical Requirements for the Origin of Life | p. 152 |
Major Trends During the Early History of Life | p. 154 |
Differences Between Early Life and Modern Life | p. 155 |
Early Life and Artificial Life | p. 157 |
The Definition of Life | p. 158 |
The Material-Independent Signatures of Life. Forensic Tools of Astrobiology | p. 159 |
Rules of Thumb in Astrobiology | p. 159 |
The Main Questions in Astrobiology | p. 161 |
How Many Parameters are Required to Identify Life? | p. 162 |
False Premises and Misguided Fingerprints in Astrobiology | p. 162 |
The Material-Independent Signatures of Life | p. 170 |
Models and Theories of Life | p. 173 |
Major Steps Toward Life | p. 173 |
The (M,R)-System Model | p. 174 |
The Two-Polymerase System | p. 177 |
The Hypercycle Model | p. 178 |
The Autocatalytic Network Model | p. 180 |
The Chemoton Model | p. 183 |
Pargellis's Model of Artificial Life | p. 188 |
The Autopoietic Model | p. 189 |
The Algorithmic Chemistry Model | p. 193 |
Chemical Reaction Automata | p. 194 |
Chronology of Definitions and Interpretations of Life | p. 197 |
Dictionary | p. 207 |
Abbreviations | p. 225 |
References | p. 227 |
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