Origins of Life Research: A Bibliometric Approach

Abstract

This study explores the collaborative nature and interdisciplinarity of the origin(s) of life (OoL)research community. Although OoL research isone of the oldest topics inphilosophy, religion, and science; to date there has been noreview of the field utilizing bibliometric measures. A dataset of 5647 publications that are tagged as OoL, astrobiology, exobiology, and prebiotic chemistry is analyzed. The most prolificauthors (Raulin, Ehrenfreund, McKay, Cleaves, Cockell, Lazcano, etc.), most cited scholars and their articles(Miller1953, Gilbert 1986, Chyba & Sagan 1992, Wȁchtershȁuser 1988, etc.), and popular journals (Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheresand Astrobiology)for OoL researchare identified. Moreover, interdisciplinary researchconductedthrough research networks, institutions(NASA, Caltech, University of Arizona, University of Washington, CNRS, etc.), and keywords & concepts (astrobiology, life, Mars, amino acid, prebiotic chemistry, evolution, RNA)are explored.