Astrobiology: Origins from the Big-Bang to Civilisation Proceedings of the Iberoamerican School of Astrobiology Caracas, Venezuela, 28 November– 8 December, 1999

Origins: From the Big-Bang to Civilisation.- Detectability of intelligent life in the universe: A search based in our knowledge of the laws of nature.- Cosmos and cosmology.- New developments in astronomy relevant to astrobiology.- Cosmochemical evolution and the origin of life on Earth.- Chemical evolution in the early Earth.- Nitrogen fixation in planetary environments: A comparison between mildly reducing and neutral atmospheres.- Darwinian dynamics and biogenesis.- Evolution of adaptive systems.- Contemporary controversies within the framework of the revolutionary theory.- Molecular Biology and the reconstruction of microbial phylogenies: des liaisons dangereuses?.- Astrobiology and the ESA Science Programme.- The chemical composition of comets.- Information, life and brains.- The origin of the neuron: The first neuron in the phylogenetic tree of life.- Origin of Synapses: A scientific account or the story of a hypothesis.- Origins of language: The evolution of human speech.- Astrophysics and Meta-Technics.- Deeper Questions: The search for darwinian evolution in our solar system.- Report on the round-table “Music of the spheres”.- Ultimate paradoxes of time travel.- Do wormholes exist?.- Heterogeneous radiolysis of succinic acid in the presence of sodium-montmorillonite. Implications to prebiotic chemistry.- Condensed matter surfaces in prebiotic chemistry.- Irradiation of adenine adsorbed in Na-Montmorillonite. Implications to chemical evolution studies.- Accumulation of alkanes ? n-C18 on the early Earth.- Advantages of the alkanes ? n-C18 as protectors for the synthesis and survival of critical biomolecules in the early Earth.- Evidence a of a nitrogen deficiency as a selective pressure towards the origin of biological nitrogen fixation in the earlyEarth.- RNA-binding peptides as early molecular fossils.- On the role of genome duplications in the evolution of prokaryotic chromosomes.- Experimental simulation of volcanic lightning on early Mars.- Tropical Alpine environments: A plausible analog for ancient and future life on Mars.- Planetary habitable zones on Earth and Mars biophysical limits of life in planetry environments.- Quantitative study of the effects of various energy sources on a Titan’s simulated atmosphere.- Life extinctions and gravitational collapse of ONeMg electron-degenerate objects.- Nameindex.- Participants.