History of life / История жизни

First, I describe what geology and paleontology aim to study. But in dealing with the history of life, we have to face the most difficult question first: where did Earth’s life come from? Astronomers find that organic compounds exist almost everywhere in space, yet we only know of life on one planet: Earth. I discuss the planets and moons of our solar system, and there are good reasons why none of them (except Earth) have life. Life exists in cells, so I discuss at length how complex organic molecules might have come together inside cells which survived, reproduced, and evolved on the early Earth. Laboratory experiments have already mimicked many of the steps in that process in the laboratory, but there is still a lot of work to be done. <...>