The story of how life (would have) originated on the early Earth

A fundamental question in Astrobiology pertains to a fascinating scientific mystery regarding how life emerged on our planet nearly 4 billion years ago! The story is nail-biting and revolves around gaining a basic understanding of how the transition from chemistry to biology would have occurred on the early Earth. I will outline the current understanding prevalent in the field while giving an overview of relevant work being undertaken at the Chemical Origins of Life (COoL) lab at IISER Pune to discern some of the processes that underlie the aforementioned transition, and the fun insightful detours we took during this journey. Even though this intriguing puzzle is still missing many pieces, I sincerely hope this talk will get us thinking about our attitude towards the only home we might ever know, while also enabling an understanding of how we can look for life elsewhere in the Universe.

References:

[1]   http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161026-the-secret-of-how-life-on-earth-began