title: A hypothesis about the origin of biology.
abstract: It is proposed that processes characteristic of biology today, autocatalysis, selection of molecules for linkage by their electrical shape, and evolution by survival selection were also the processes that initiated biology. A reconnaissance is made of both paradoxes and potential questions. It is argued that the minimal requirement for initiating Darwinian evolution is not a molecule copying process, but a linkage copying process. Survival selection evolution does not require a heterocatalytic polymer and a separate replicase process until there is uncertainty where molecular additions will occur. It is argued that a linkage directing process will be found for a lipid membrane (though this needs to be verified) and may in the right environment result in initial evolution, including initiation of α-helices, the development of a single chirality and NTPs. The system has at this point become sufficiently complex that higher precision copying is needed. However it seems likely that this state is able to generate the first miniature ribozymes and their replicases, and so satisfies the prior requirement. With the proposed requirements, it is likely that the development of polymers was within membranes.
authors: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85750, USA, nwoolf@email.arizona.edu.
authors: Neville J
authors: NJ
authors: Woolf
mesh_terms: D019418:Evolution, Chemical; D008566:Membranes / Q000737:chemistry; D000069497:Origin of Life; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry; D016337:RNA, Catalytic / Q000737:chemistry; D012324:RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D016337:RNA, Catalytic; D012324:RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase