Origin of Life: Proceedings of the Third ISSOL Meeting and the Sixth ICOL Meeting, Jerusalem, June 2227, 1980 [Hardcover]

This volume is a record of the 6th International Conference on the Origins of Life and the 3rd Meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origins of Life. The conference was held under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities at Jerusalem from June 22nd to June 27th 1980. A few weeks prior to the conference, Academician Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin passed away. Oparin, the father and founder of the study of the origins of life, proposed over 50 years ago that modern biological molecules had abidogical origins in the past, thus the beginning of life on Earth was preceded by a long period of abiogenic molecular evolution. Oparin was planning to report on his latest work in the opening session of the meeting - Natural Selection: A Leading Factor in Transition from the Non-Living Matter to Life . This lecture will never be delivered. In Hebrew we say of those who have died may their memory be bound with the bonds of eternal life . For Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin those words have particular significance, for surely his pioneering work will endure as long as the spirit of scientific enquiry prevails. This meeting was dedicated to the memory of Aleksander Ivanovich Oparin.Interstellar Molecules and the Origin of Life.- Molecules in Interstellar Clouds.- On the Origin of Organic Molecules in Interstellar Space and Some of its Consequences.- Comets and the Origin of Life.- Nature and Origin of Organic Molecules in Comets.- Liquid Water on a Planet over Cosmic Periods.- Organic Analysis of the Antarctic Carbonaceous Chondrites.- Nitrogen Compounds in Carbonaceous Meteorites: A Reassessment.- Abiotic Organic Synthesis in Space.- Formation of Prebiotic Precursors from Model Reducing Atmospheres: Role of Hydrogen Escape.- Organic Chemical Evolution of Reducing Model of the Atmosphere of the Primitive Earth. Role of UV Light and Electric Discharges.- Far UV Photolysis of Methane-Water Gaseous Mixtures and the Prebiotic Synthesis of Aldehydes.-ló;