OoL digest — August 1st edition

This week we have 2 preprints and 6 new papers on the origin of life. Enjoy!

Astrobiology

Contamination analysis of Arctic ice samples as planetary field analogs and implications for future life-detection missions to Europa and Enceladus – Coelho et al. – Scientific Reports

How does salinity shape ocean circulation and ice geometry on Enceladus and other icy satellites? – Kang et al. – Science Advances

Predicting biosignatures for nutrient limited biospheres – Nicholson et al. – preprint


Biochemistry

Dissipative Photochemical Abiogenesis of the Purines – Hernández et al. – Entropy

Template-Free Assembly of Functional RNAs by Loop-Closing Ligation – Wu et al. – Journal of the American Chemical Society


Chemistry

Prebiotic synthesis of α-amino acids and orotate from α-ketoacids potentiates transition to extant metabolic pathways – Pulletikurti et al. – Nature Chemistry


Planetary Science

Early Cambrian renewal of the geodynamo and the origin of inner core structure – Zhou et al. – Nature Communications


Statistical Physics

Statistical-physics approaches to RNA molecules, families and networks – Cocco et al. – preprint