There are significant challenges in forming testable hypotheses regarding abiogenesis (i.e., the origin of life); for example, the original environment on the early Earth during the process of abiogenesis is a matter of debate [although it was significantly different from the current environment (Oparin, 1952; Hazen et al., 2008)]. Furthermore, the process of abiogenesis occurred over a time sc...

A moderately halophilic, gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium was isolated from surface saline soil of the Karaj region, Iran. The strain, designated MA-2T, was strictly aerobic with rod-shaped cells that occurred singly, in pairs or short chains. It contained L-Om-D-Asp-type peptidoglycan and the major respiratory lipoquinone was MK-7. It was non-motile and had an ellipsoidal endospore locat...

In exponentially growing cultures of the extreme halophile Halobacterium halobium and the moderate halophile Haloferax volcanii, growth characteristics including intracellular protein levels, RNA content, and nucleotide pool sizes were analyzed. This is the first report on pool sizes of nucleoside triphosphates, NAD, and PRPP (5-phosphoribosyl-alpha-1-pyrophosphate) in archaea. The presence of ...