{"id":812,"date":"2021-06-01T14:19:28","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T14:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biota.org\/?page_id=812"},"modified":"2025-10-16T01:22:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T01:22:04","slug":"biota-home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/biota.org\/","title":{"rendered":"BIOTA Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dedicated to the Question
How did Life Begin?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Our Mission<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The BIOTA Institute is a US 501(c)(3) charitable organization established to support new research on the science of life’s origins<\/strong> and to explore its wider implications<\/strong> for humanity through multi-disciplinary collaboration. Our activities include: providing grants and mentorship<\/strong> for students and young scientists, hosting online meetings and data sharing<\/strong>, defining and sponsoring laboratory and field experiments<\/strong>, and producing media<\/strong> to engage the public. We are taking a novel approach by publishing a set of contributed experiments to test a specific scenario, the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an origin of life<\/em><\/strong> developed by Prof. David Deamer and Dr. Bruce Damer, both at the University of California at Santa Cruz.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Go look at the science<\/a><\/h5>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A Scientific Revolution<\/h1>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The scientific quest to understand how life began on the Earth approximately 4 billion years ago is undergoing a revolution. Charles Darwin<\/strong> famously wrote in 1871 that he thought that life started in a warm little pond<\/em><\/strong>. Following a century of research centered on a variety of approaches, several international research teams have come together to further develop Darwin’s insight. Laboratory and field experiments have demonstrated<\/strong> that through wet-dry cycling of hot spring waters, molecules resembling proteins<\/strong> and RNA-like polymers<\/strong> can self-assemble and become encapsulated to form protocells<\/strong>, a first step on the evolutionary path to living cells.\u00a0<\/p>

Scientific American<\/em><\/strong> introduced this new discovery to the public on the cover of its August 2017 issue, declaring it to be a revolution in science. It had been long thought that life began in the oceans and later emerged onto continents, but the authors of this article presented the remarkable discovery of a hot spring mineral called geyserite<\/em> which contained evidence for live thriving on land 3.5 billion years ago. The article then proposed seven steps to life<\/strong> originating on a volcanic landscape starting with simple organic compounds. This scenario later became known as the Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life<\/strong>. The BIOTA Institute has been tasked with a new mission to provide resources to students and young scientists for the experimental testing of each of these seven stages.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Learn more about the hypothesis<\/a><\/h5>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Wider Implications for Humanity<\/h3>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It has been suggested that like the revolution set off by Nicolaus Copernicus’ 1543 proposal of a sun-centered solar system, solving the mystery of how life can begin from a jumble of nonliving molecules will transform multiple human endeavors, including:\u00a0<\/p>