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Three stages of the origin of life process: bifurcation, stabilization and inversion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2008

V.N. Kompanichenko
V.N. Kompanichenko
Affiliation:
Institute for Complex Analysis, 4 Sholom-Aleyhem Street, Birobidzhan 679016, Russia Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz CA 95064, USA e-mail: kompanv@yandex.ru
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Abstract

The principal succession of transformations of a prebiotic microsystem leading to its transition into the primary living state is theoretically substantiated. For the first stage of the succession, a significant change in the external conditions constrains an organic microsystem to leave the current stable state with the following transition into a new stable state through the unstable critical (bifurcation) point. At the bifurcation point the microsystem acquires the original properties without which life cannot exist (self-maintaining heterogeneous structure, incessant fluctuations and rearrangement of molecules, exchange with the surroundings by matter and energy, etc.). During the second stage its unstable state stabilizes relatively by means of the balanced oscillations around the bifurcation point (the paradoxical state of ‘stabilized instability’ appears). The third stage is characterized with the radical turn in the network of chemical reactions: the free energy contribution begins to prevail over the entropy contribution. As a result, constructive transformations proceed faster than destructive transformations. At this stage the key properties of biological organization appear: the ability to concentrate free energy and information, intensified counteraction to external influences, expedient behaviour and persistent self-renovation. On the early Earth, such successive transformation of organic matter occurred in the changeable conditions of a hydrothermal medium. Some new methods for experimental and theoretical research in the origin of life field are suggested.

Keywords

propertybiological systemorigin of lifestagebifurcationfree energyentropy
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 27 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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