The Equations Of Life
How Physics Shapes Evolution
Charles S. Cockell 2018, CMill 576.801 COCKELL
A well written book, not afraid of algebra and quantitative thinking.
The search for life, and the creation of artificial life outside Earth's biosphere, will require vast launch resources, hence the relevance for launch loop. Cells are tiny, ecospheres are enormous. An exhaustive search for fossil microbes and molecules on Mars may require trillions of small robots and vast teams of scientists on Deimos designing de novo experiments to analyze sample returns launched to "nearby" isolation labs on Phobos for molecular structural analysis by huge machines resembling the National Synchrotron Light Source.
Notes:
- p93 typo: "That smallest theoretical size is about two hundred to three hundred microns" ... 0.2 to 0.3 microns, or 200 to three hundred nanometers.
- p164 ATP synthase: electron transport. But what about explicit electrostatic motor operation in a fluid-free environment?
The text is not footnoted, the footnotes refer to page number.
p264, ch1n6 Steven Vogel (1988) Life's Devices: The Physical World of Animals and Plants (and see bibliography), also S. Vogel 1999 Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People (Multco 571.43 V879c 1998 )
p294, ch6 D. Billi et. al. (2000) Ionizing-radiation resistance in the desiccation-tolerant cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis
p316 R Heller, J Armstrong - Astrobiology, 2014 Superhabitable worlds