Dr Helen Greenwood Hansma | Energy: A Clue to the Origins of Life
Original Article Reference
This SciPod is a summary of the paper ‘Mechanical Energy before Chemical Energy at the Origins of Life?’, in Sci. https://doi.org/10.3390/sci2040088 & https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2022.08.032
About this episode
Energy is vital for life. It allows important functions to occur in living systems, from the molecular level to the scale of the whole organism. Dr Helen Greenwood Hansma, from the University of California in Santa Barbara, believes that the types of energy used in living cells can provide clues to help us understand the origins of life. In her recent research, she explores how mechanical energy could have driven the processes that gave rise to early life in the absence of chemical energy.
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