Protocells at life's origin are often conceived as bilayer-enclosed precursors of life, whose
self-reproduction rests on the early advent of replicating catalytic biopolymers. This …

Understanding the emergence of life from (primitive) abiotic components has arguably been
one of the deepest and yet one of the most elusive scientific questions. Notwithstanding the …

Autocatalysis is essential for the origin of life and chemical evolution. However, the lack of a
unified framework so far prevents a systematic study of autocatalysis. Here, we derive, from …

Prior research on evolutionary mechanisms during the origin of life has mainly assumed the
existence of populations of discrete entities with information encoded in genetic polymers …

This work addresses the kinetic requirements for compensating the entropic cost of self-
organization and natural selection, thereby revealing a fundamental principle in biology …

Autocatalysis has been proposed to play critical roles during abiogenesis. These proposals
are at odds with a limited number of known examples of abiotic (and, in particular, inorganic) …

A closer look at Wilhelm Ostwald's articles that originally proposed the concept of
autocatalysis reveals that he accepted reactants, not just products, as potential …

Prior work on abiogenesis, the emergence of life from non-life, suggests that it requires
chemical reaction networks that contain self-amplifying motifs, namely, autocatalytic cores …

Metabolism across all known living systems combines two key features. First, all of the
molecules that are required are either available in the environment or can be built up from …

Biological reproduction rests ultimately on chemical autocatalysis. Autocatalytic chemical
cycles are thought to have played an important role in the chemical complexification en …