The search for life's origins : progress and future directions in planetary biology and chemical evolution /

This report on the current state of a study concerning chemical evolution and planetary biology lists the goals and objectives of future research in the area and gives recommendations for accomplishing them. The area of the study is broad, gathering together a wide spectrum of disciplines from astronomy to comparative planetology to paleobiology, which, in the context of this report, are closely interrelated and are concerned, as the book's title implies, with the search for the origins of life. The book's eight chapters consider such topics as the evolutionary history of the biogenic elements, and how these chemical materials came together on the primordial earth to form the first living organisms, and recommends future research in the area. Other chapters discuss the detection of extrasolar-system planets, and the gaps in our knowledge of the first replicating systems, and suggest specific overall research objectives over the broad range of disciplines. Policy issues are also discussed. Useful for academic libraries serving upper-division and graduate-level students. -J. M. Carpenter, University of Kentucky