A Home for Life: Formation of the Solar System and Planet Earth

The story of life's origins begins with the formation of the earth. The sequence of events that gave rise to our planet began, in turn, with the cosmic explosion physicists call the Big Bang. The sun at the center of our solar system condensed from a cloud of primordial matter roughly 5 billion years ago; the planets, including the earth, condensed about 4.6 billion years ago. The earth is composed of a number of layers: a solid crust, a semisolid mantle, and a largely molten (liquid) core that has a solid center. Basic physical features of Earth that may have made the emergence of life possible include the planet's size, temperature, composition, and distance from the sun. The major current hypothesis holds that life arose spontaneously on the early earth by means of chemical evolution from nonliving substances.

生命起源于地球的形成。大爆炸是我们行星形成的开始。太阳在50亿年前生成，位于太阳系中心，行星，包括地球，在46亿年前生成。地球由多层组成：坚硬的地壳，半流体的地幔，一个很大的溶解中心中存在一个坚实的中心。地球的基本特征使生命起源成为可能，包括行星的大小，温度，组成以及离太阳的距离。当前主要假设认为，由非生命的化学物质进化过程自发产生了生命。

The Emergence of life: Organic and Biological Molecules on a Primitive Planet

Evidence for prelife stages of chemical organization comes from laboratory experiments that try to duplicate the physical environment and chemical resources of the early earth. These experiments, including the pioneering work of Miller and Urey, have successfully produced organic monomers including amino acids, simple sugars, and nucleic acid bases. The probable next step toward life was the spontaneous linking of such monomers into polymers such as proteinoids and nuclei acids. Current

research suggests that likely sites for this polymerization were clay or rock surfaces.

通过创造出地球早期的自然条件和化学资源条件，科学家在实验室中已经获得了化学有机体生命前阶段的证据。这些实验包括米勒等早期所做工作，成功地产出了有机单体，包括氨基酸，单糖，核酸碱基。这些单体自发的连接成多聚体，如类蛋白和核酸，使进入生命状态成为可能。这些聚合作用可能发生在泥土或岩石表面。

Researchers have found that, when energy is available to a system, they can generate three kinds of organic molecular aggregates. The Russian Aleksandr Oparin obtained polymer-rich droplets, called coacervates from solutions of polymers. Sidney Fox generated proteinoid microspheres from mixtures of amino acids and water. A third laboratory structure is the liposome, a spherical lipid bilayer that forms from phospholipids. A structure similar to one or more of these aggregates may have been the precursor of true cells.

当一个系统获得能量时，可能发生3种有机分子的聚集。从多聚物的溶液中俄国科学家获得了富含小液滴的多聚物，即凝聚物。从氨基酸和水的混合液中Fox获得了类蛋白微球体。实验室第三个结构物质是脂质体，即由磷脂形成的球形脂双层结构。

Further steps in the appearance of cells on the earth included the development of RNA and DNA as biological information molecules. Evidence suggests that RNA, which can form spontaneously under conditions mimicking those of the early earth, was the first informational molecule. The discovery of RNA ribozymes-RNA that can act as an enzymelike catalyst suggests that such catalytic RNA also could have assembled new RNAs from early nucleotides. Certain catalytic RNAs can also carry out sexlike exchanges of pieces of RNA.

RNA可能是地球早期形成的第一个贮藏信息的物质。在实验室模拟早期地球自然条件下其可自发形成。核酶的发现说

明它可以催化早期核酸形成新的RNA。对于RNA物种而言，某些催化RNA具备类似于性交换的功能。

Following the development of a lipid-protein surface layer and replicating RNA and DNA informational molecules, the events leading to the emergence of living cells would have included the origin of the genetic code; the sequestering of RNA or DNA into cell-like structures; and the development of metabolic pathways. 接下来脂蛋白表层的形成，RNA的复制,DNA信息分子的形成，最终导致活细胞的出现，包括最初的遗传密码，RNA或DNA被包裹进细胞样的结构中；及代谢途径的建立。 The Earliest Cells

The oldest fossils that may represent living cells are found in rocks that are about 3.5 billion years old. The cells were probably anaerobic heterotrophs, with autotrophs arising much later. The first autotrophs produced their own nutrients and released O,-a metabolic by-product that had a crucial impact on later life forms. The resulting ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere reduced the penetration of ultraviolet light. As a result, cells would survive in shallow water and on the land surface. The increasing quantity of atmospheric oxygen also permitted the evolution of aerobic cells and cellular respiration, which in turn signaled the beginning of the global carbon cycle.Although the earliest cells were all prokaryotes, by about 1.5 billion years ago eukaryotes appeared.

能说明活细胞存在的最古老化石大约有35亿年了。最早出现的细胞可能是厌氧异氧生物，自养生物很久后出现。最早的自养生物自己生产营养并释放氧气，这个新陈代谢副产品对后期生命的形成有一个深远的影响。臭氧层的出现减少了紫外线的渗透。结果，细胞就能够在浅水区和陆地上生存了。大气中氧气数量的增加使得需氧细胞进化并产生细胞呼吸，这预示着全球碳循环的开始。最早期的细胞都是原核生物，直到15亿年后，真核细胞才出现。

The Changing Face of planet Earth

Changes in land masses, the seas, and climate have greatly affected the evolution of life on the earth. The basic parts of the planet include a light, solid crust over a hot, semisolid mantle and an inner, partially molten core. Massive segments or plates of the crust move over the mantle in the process of continental drift. Over the past 500 million years, continental drift has sculpted the earth's crusts to produce the form and distribution of present-day continents. Climatic changes that greatly affected living organisms accompanied these plate movements; the period was marked by occasional waves of mass extinctions of living creatures. Organisms were also affected by periods of glaciation that followed variations in the earth's orbit and in the output of energy by the sun.

大陆板快，海洋的改变，以及气候对地球生命的进化都有深远影响。地幔上大板快地壳的挤压形成大陆漂移。大陆漂移雕塑了地壳的外观，使现在大陆形成。伴随板块运动，气候改变对活有机体有深远影响。在特定时期的生物大量灭亡高峰是这个时期的见证。生物也受冰河期影响，在冰河期，地球轨道和太阳能的输出都发生了很大变化。

Taxonomy: Categorizing the Variety of living Things

Biologists use the binomial system of nomenclature developed by Linnaeus to categorize the varieties of life on the earth. The system assigns each type of organism to a genus and species. Organisms are then further classified into higher taxonomic categories-family, order, class, division (plants), phylum (animals), and kingdom. Evidence from many subfields of biology, such as biochemistry and comparative anatomy, helps define species and higher taxa (taxon). And whereas species were originally defined in terms of morphological traits, today biologists generally use the criterion of a reproductively isolated population.

生物学家利用林奈发展的双名法对生物分类。系统选定每个类型的生物进入属和种，然后将生物进一步分类更高级类别中，即科，目，纲，门，界。来自于生物化学和比较解剖学等