Global ETD Search
Search theses and dissertations gathered from participating repositories worldwide. Every result links back to the library that holds it. No account is needed.
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Showing 1 to 20 of 25 for “"Origin of Life"”.
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Coacervate protocells as reaction centres at the origin of life
Contains fulltext : 325221.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Closed access)
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TIMELESS QUESTIONS AND MODERN CHALLENGES: A JOURNEY FROM THE ORIGIN OF LIFE IN HYDROTHERMAL VENTS TO ELECTROCHEMICAL CO2 REDUCTION
The objective of the work presented here is to investigate the functioning of the alkaline hydrothermal vent from an electrochemical point of view in order to inspire new technologies for CO2 reduction. Oceanic hydrothermal vents (HTVs) are geological structures that played a key role 4 billion …
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The carbon compounds of the primeval atmosphere
<p>The question of how and when life originated on t his planet has always been an intriguing one, exceeded perhaps in fascination only by that area of speculation which concerns itself with death and the afterlife . The latter problem has generally been approached along theological lines; the …
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From the Origins of Life to Epidemics: Bayesian Inference, Stochastic Simulation, and Dynamics of Bioinformatic Systems
With the advent of DNA and protein sequencing, X-ray crystallography, and other methods of analysis, researchers interested in biological questions have been presented with a wealth of data to parse and interpret. Additionally, some hypotheses, such as those pertaining to the origin of life, are …
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The Non-Ending Search for a Pre-DNA Replicator: Richard Dawkins and the Problem of Abiogenesis
… dissertation provides a rebuttal to the claims of Richard Dawkins in explaining the origin of life. The bulk of the ensuing analysis challenges his philosophical assumptions as it notes his vacillation between several models over time. The study further details Dawkins's multifaceted approach to …
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Probability, explanation, and reasoning
… probability and explanation to the confirmation of theories. The first concerns the debate over prediction versus accommodation. I argue that we typically have reason to be more confident of a theory given that it was constructed independently of the knowledge of certain data than if it was …
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Ice as a medium for RNA-catalysed RNA synthesis and evolution
A critical event in the origin of life is thought to have been the emergence of a molecule capable of self-replication and evolution. According to the RNA World hypothesis, this could have been an RNA polymerase ribozyme capable of generating copies of itself from simple nucleotide precursors. In …
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Engineering exclusively-quadruplet codon translation in vivo
… codons would answer many questions about the origin of life and have profound implications for expanding the genetic code to include novel amino acids. However, the task of assembling enough quadruplet-tRNAs (qtRNAs) to implement an all-quadruplet code remains a major hurdle. Here, we create …
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Self-assembled Precipitation Membranes and the Implications for Natural Sciences
… complex membrane structures. Such membranes are of great research interest in fields ranging from chemical engineering to geophysics, and even biology where they are thought to have played a vital role in the origin of life. Usually, the transport of chemicals by combined buoyancy, osmotic and …
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SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, AND THERMAL INVESTIGATION OF METAL PHOSPHITES AND POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS FOR ASTROBIOLOGY
<p>The role of phosphorus in biochemistry is well understood. However, the route by which phosphorus was incorporated into early biomolecules on the prebiotic Earth is uncertain. Phosphate, the most prevalent species of phosphorus found in Earth’s geological record, is insoluble and unreactive with …
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Laboratory Studies of Gas-Grain Processes on Cosmic Dust Analogues
<p>The formation of molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM) takes place both in the gas phase and on surfaces of cosmic dust grains. Gas phase reactions alone are found to be insufficient to account for the observed abundance of molecules such as molecular hydrogen, water, carbon dioxide, …
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Die rol van nostalgie binne die konsep van ontluistering in die werk van N.P. van Wyk Louw
… nostalgia and the debunking effect in the work of N.P. van Wyk Louw Starting with a thorough explanation of the term nostalgia to establish any implications the word might have. They can be summarised as: A longing for a simple life without loneliness where the person will feel at home. A desire …
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Early evolution of environments and metabolism: insights from nitrogen, selenium and sulfur isotopes
The evolution of planet Earth and its biosphere are tightly linked through global biogeochemical cycles, and this dissertation seeks to explore this linkage during the Precambrian with new strategies and geochemical techniques. The first chapter is the result of a group project in which we propose …
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Deuterium Tracer Study Of The Mechanism Of Iron Catalyzed Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis
… FTS is also an important way to understand the origin of life. Even though the FTS has been used to produce liquid fuels commercially for a relatively long time, the mechanism of FTS is still unclear, a mechanism can explain all the experimental observations has not been discovered yet. </p> …
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Mechanics of seed-grown planar chemical gardens
… alchemist Glauber introduced solid crystals of iron(III) chloride into an aqueous solution of potassium silicate. He noted the formation of some strange, plant-like structures, which he recorded in his 1646 book Furni Novi Philosophici as "philosophical trees". Glauber would not have guessed …
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RNA-Peptide Based Coacervates as a Prebiotically Plausible Pathway towards a Proto-Ribosome
Origin of life chemistry is a multidisciplinary field focusing on the goal of understanding how Earth went from a hostile rock, inhospitable to life, to a biodiverse planet. A key goal in this is understanding how protocells formed in an abiotic environment as a pathway to the first biotic cells. A …
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Role of fluids in geological processes
… components on Earth that ensure the habitability of the planet and play an important role in many geological processes. Small aliquots of these fluids can be preserved in the geological record as fluid inclusions and can provide valuable information about the physical and chemical environment in …
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The Conditions of Emergence: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of The Origins of Life
<p>This dissertation explores the limits of feminist theory in terms of what questions it can address, and does this by reimagining the relation feminist theory and late nineteenth and twentieth-century continental thought can have with scientific research concerning the origins of life. I argue …
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