Many solar systems in the universe may be expected to contain rocky planets that have accreted organic compounds. These compounds are likely to be universally found. In addition, the chemistry of sulfur, phosphorus, and iron is likely to dominate energy transductions and monomer activation, leading to the eventual emergence of polymers. Proteins and polynucleotides provide living matter with function, structure, and information. The conceptual puzzle regarding their emergence is discussed. The fitness of various elements to serve various roles is (...) analyzed from the viewpoint of electron orbitals. Elements with d orbitals are of central importance. (shrink)

In the Museum of Science and Technology in San Jose, California, there is a display dedicated to advances in biotechnology. Most prominent in the display is a double helix of telephone books stacked in two staggered spirals from the floor to the ceiling twenty-five feet above. The books are said to represent the current state of our knowledge of the eukaryotic genome: the primary sequences of DNA polynucleotides for the gene products which have been discovered so far in the (...) twenty years since cloning and sequencing the genome became possible. (shrink)

The origin of homochirality in molecules characterizing living systems has remained a mystery since Pasteur's recognition of the problem some 150 years ago.2-5 Most theories also assume that homochirality emerged in one class of molecules (e.g. ribose) from which it was enriched in other molecules (e.g. amino acids) as well.2-5 I propose a novel, experimentally testable hypothesis describing a process by which selective chirality in amino acids and ribonucleotides emerged simultaneously and hand-in-hand with the origin and directionality of the genetic (...) code within a system of interactions involving amino acids, peptides, nucleotide bases, their sugars and polynucleotides. BioEssays 29:689–698, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Genocentrism, the thesis that the genes play a special role in the causation of development is often rejected in favor of a 'causal democracy thesis' to the effect that all causally necessary conditions for development are equal. Genocentrists argue that genes play a distinct causal role owing to their informational content and that this content enables them to program the embryo. I show that the special causal role of the genome hinges not on its informational status — it has none, (...) or at least no more than computer programs have independent of our interpretations of them — but on its power literally to program the embryo, a power nicely illustrated in the use of polynucleotide sequences to compute solutions to NP hard problems in mathematics. (shrink)

In the Museum of Science and Technology in San Jose, California, there is a display dedicated to advances in biotechnology. Most prominent in the display is a double helix of telephone books stacked in two staggered spirals from the floor to the ceiling twenty-five feet above. The books are said to represent the current state of our knowledge of the eukaryotic genome: the primary sequences of DNA polynucleotides for the gene products which have been discovered so far in the (...) twenty years since cloning and sequencing the genome became possible. (shrink)