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Please contact us if have an event which you wish to promote. If we feel it is appropriate to the Association then it will be listed here. Send details to Dr. Alex Monro Dept. of Botany, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 5BD, UK.
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If you would like to organise your own conference, with Systematics Association funding, you need to complete a Conference Proposal form and submit it to Dr. Alex Monro Dept. of Botany, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW7 5BD, UK.
The chemical origin of life in hydrothermal vents: new perspectives
Wednesday 3 December 2008 at
6pm (following AGM at 5pm)
Linnean Society, London
Professor Bill Martin
University of Duesseldorf
Most recent thinking on the origin of life and the earliest phases of evolution has focused on aspects of chemical synthesis, organisation, information and replication. However, all living systems have at the core of their biochemistry a redox potential that is harnessed as chemical energy. This in turn facilitates the myriad of side reactions that permit the substance of life to progress. Assuming that life has not forgotten how it arose, the trace of its biochemical origins should be preserved somewhere within the metabolism of modern organisms. I will present a novel hypothesis that focuses on the interaction between eubacterial and archaebacterial biochemistries and hydrothermal fluids. This suggests that compounds such as CO or methyl sulphide, present in hydrothermal fluid by virtue of serpentinization processes in the Earth's crust, could have been essential to life's origin, with the transition to free-living cells entailing the ability to survive on H2 and CO2 alone.
The meeting is open to visitors
Wine will be served after the lecture to members and guests
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