Forterre Patrick, Gribaldo Simonetta
HFSP J. 2007 Sep;1(3):156-68. doi: 10.2976/1.2759103. Epub 2007 Jul 25.
The study of the origin of life covers many areas of expertise and requires the input of various scientific communities. In recent years, this research field has often been viewed as part of a broader agenda under the name of "exobiology" or "astrobiology." In this review, we have somewhat narrowed this agenda, focusing on the origin of modern terrestrial life. The adjective "modern" here means that we did not speculate on different forms of life that could have possibly appeared on our planet, but instead focus on the existing forms (cells and viruses). We try to briefly present the state of the art about alternative hypotheses discussing not only the origin of life per se, but also how life evolved to produce the modern biosphere through a succession of steps that we would like to characterize as much as possible.
生命起源的研究涵盖了许多专业领域，需要各个科学团体的参与。近年来，这个研究领域常常被视为以“外星生物学”或“天体生物学”之名的更广泛议程的一部分。在本综述中，我们对这个议程有所收窄，聚焦于现代地球生命的起源。这里的形容词“现代”意味着我们并未推测可能在我们星球上出现的不同生命形式，而是专注于现存的形式（细胞和病毒）。我们试图简要介绍关于各种替代假说的当前状况，这些假说不仅讨论生命本身的起源，还探讨生命如何通过一系列我们尽可能想加以描述的步骤进化以产生现代生物圈。
