OoL digest — January 3rd edition
First ool-digest edition of 2022: we have two papers in astrobiology, two in biochemistry and one in computational biology. In astrobiology, Coelho presents a spectra catalogue of life in ice to facilitate the search for biosignatures and Raymond-Bouchard discusses sequencing with the MinION instrument as a way to detect microbial biosignatures. In biochemistry, Mizuuchi discusses recent approaches to develop a replication system capable of Darwinian evolution and Yukawa suggests that the RNA-DNA transition could have been easier than previously thought. Finally, in computational biology Bonforti presents a model of cell-cell adhesion addressing the problem of how multicellularity could have emerged. Happy reading!
Astrobiology
Color Catalogue of Life in Ice: Surface Biosignatures on Icy Worlds – Coelho et al. – Astrobiology
Assessment of Automated Nucleic Acid Extraction Systems in Combination with MinION Sequencing As Potential Tools for the Detection of Microbial Biosignatures – Raymond-Bouchard et al. – Astrobiology
Biochemistry
Development and evolution of a primitive life-like molecular replication system – Mizuuchi – Viva Origino
Relaxed Substrate Specificity in Qβ Replicase through Long-Term In Vitro Evolution – Yukawa et al. – Life
Computational biology
Unicellular-Multicellular Evolutionary Branching Driven by Resource Limitations – Bonforti et al. – preprint