Morowitz

Morowitz, H.J. (1993) Entropy and the Magic Flute (Oxford University Press, Oxford)... 

Morowitz, H. (1992), Beginnings of Cellular Life Metabolism Recapitulates Biogenesis, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 

Morowitz, H. (1985), Models for Biomedical Research A New Perspective, National Academy of Sciences Press, Washington, DC. 

Morowitz et al. (1995) chose a completely different route. They were able to synthesize glutamic acid from a-ketoglutarate, ammonia and formic acid in an aqueous medium without using enzymes. It is noteworthy that the reducing agent, formic acid, is one of the main products in the Miller-Urey experiment. 

G. Wachtershauser formulated his suggestions on the initial metabolic processes on the primeval Earth (as described above) in the form of six postulates and eleven theses (Wachtershauser, 1990b). Laboratory experiments planned to check, and perhaps confirm, these theories have already been attempted. The reductive Krebs cycle (rTCA cycle) has recently been the subject of much discussion. Smith and Morowitz consider that the rTCA cycle is a universal, possibly primordial, core process which could have provided substances for the synthesis of biomolecules on the young Earth (Smith and Morowitz, 2004). 

Smith E, Morowitz HJ (2004) Proc Natl Acad Scie USA 101 13168... 

BruB D and Leusch G (Eds.) (2006) Lectures on Quantum Information. John Wiley Sons Ltd. Copley SD, Smith E, Morowitz HJ (2005) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102 4442 de Duve C (1991) Blueprint for a cell The Nature and the Origin of Life, Carolina Biological Supply Company... 

Only a few years after Morowitz s article appeared, some of the models suggested were confirmed (or as good as confirmed). 

Morowitz HJ, Heinz B, Deamer DW (1988) Orig Life Evol Biosphere 18 281... 

Margulis, L. and Schwartz, K.V. (1998). Five Kingdoms (3rd ed.). Freeman and Co., New York Morowitz, H.J. (1992). Beginnings of Cellular Life. Yale University Press, New York Pope, M.T., Still, E.R. and Williams, R.J.P. (1980). A Comparison between the chemistry and biochemistry of molybdenum and related elements. In M. Cougwan, (ed.), Molybdenum and Molybdenum Containing Enzymes. Pergamon Press, Oxford, Chap. 1... 

Maynard Smith, J. and Szathmary, E. (1998). The Origins of Life. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Morowitz, H. (2002). The Emergence of Everything. Oxford University Press Inc., New York. Mulkidjanian, A.Y., and Junge, W. (1999). Primordial UV-protectors as ancestors of the photosynthetic pigment protein. In G. A. Peshek, et al. (eds). The Phototropic Prokaryotes. Kluwer Academic Press Pub., New York, pp. 805-812... 

The idea of the high probability of the occurrence of life on Earth, although phrased differently and generally with less emphasis, is presented by other significant authors. For instance, H. J. Morowitz in his well-known book on the emergence of cellular life (1992, p. 12), states ... 

The interesting conjunction in de Duve s and Morowitz s view - and all the others who adhere to the deterministic view of the high probability of the origin of fife - is the rejection of the miraculous scenario, and the acceptance, more or... 

Contingency, in this particular context, can be defined as the simultaneous interplay of several concomitant effects to shape an event in a given space/time situation. In most of the epistemological literature this word has aptly replaced the terms chance or random event and in fact it has a different texture. In this sense, it should not be confused simply with a highly improbable event , as mentioned above in the Morowitz citation. Eor example, a tile falling on your head from a roof can be seen as a chance event, but in fact it is due to the concomitance of many independent factors such as the place where you were, the speed at which you were walking, the state of the roof, the presence of wind, etc. 

In a rather original approach, H. J. Morowitz and co-workers (Morowitz et al, 1991 1995 and 2000) examine the chemistry of a model system of C, H, and O that starts with carbon dioxide and reductants and uses redox couples as the energy source. To investigate the reachon networks that might emerge, they start... 

Cairns-Smith s original approach may sound different from Morowitz s approach mentioned earlier but in fact it also postulates a kind of metabolism without and prior to enzymes. 

One of the earliest attempts to describe the DNA/proteins minimal cell was by Morowitz (1967). Based on the enzymatic components of primary metabolism, Morowitz estimated that the size of a minimal cell should be about one-tenth smaller than mycoplasma. There were earlier significant insights to the field by Dyson (1982) as well as by Woese (1983) and Jay and Gilbert (1987). More recently, the reviews by Deamer and coworkers (Pohorille and Deamer, 2002) together with other researchers (Ono and Ikegami, 2000 Luisi, 2002a Oberholzer and Luisi, 2002) have sharpened the question and brought it into the perspective of the modern molecular tools. 

Morowitz, H. J. (1967). Biological self-replicating systems. Prog. Theor. Biol, 1,... 

Morowitz, H. J., Peterson, E., and Chang, S. (1995). The synthesis of glutamic acid in the absence of enzymes - implications for biogenesis. Orig. Life Evol. Biosph., 25, 395-9. 

Morowitz presents an interesting (and controversial) theory of the beginning of cellular life the theory is based on the spontaneous condensation of amphiphilic molecules to form vesicles ( protocells ). 

Morowitz, H.J. (1978) Foundations of Bioenergetics, Academic Press, Inc., New Vork. [Out of print.]... 

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