This section collects notes on evolutionary biology, with an emphasis on molecular evolution and the deep history of life. Notes cover landmark papers on phylogenetics (Woese’s three-domain system), the nature of universal common ancestors, and hypotheses about the origins of life in wet icy environments. This material appears here because of its relevance to computational biology: understanding evolutionary relationships and the origins of biological molecules provides important context for work on protein sequences, genomics, and astrobiology.
Drive to Life on Wet and Icy Worlds: Alkaline Vent Theory
This paper reformulates the submarine alkaline hydrothermal theory for the origin of life, positing that life emerged as a free energy converter driven by specific geological disequilibria - specifically redox and pH gradients across inorganic precipitate membranes - utilizing hydrogen, methane, and CO2 as primary feedstocks.
