How did life evolve so quickly from abiotic processes in the early earth?
Perhaps the key conceptual question of biology is to explain the emergence of living organisms from early geochemistry. What were the key physical processes that led to self-organization of early metabolism and self-reproducing molecules? Can we make statistical predictions of the likely core metabolic pathways that emerge from known geochemistry? Can these ideas be extended to extra-terrestrial environments, such as Mars or Europa, and guide remote sensing of microbial or other life? Interestingly, it is impossible to address each of these questions in isolation. For example, in studying microbial ecology, one must identify microorganisms from portions of their DNA, because culturing is very difficult. As Carl Woese was the first to show, the pattern of mutations in the DNA allows one to reconstruct the evolutionary relationship between the organisms: when put together with the ecological context, a compelling portrait emerges of the way in which the environment has shaped the communi
