Carl Woese, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
This is a PDF copy of the article in which Carl Woese describes his genetic annealing model for the universal ancestor of life. Topics covered include definition of genetic annealing and evolutionary temperature, the importance of translation machinery in determining evolutionary rate, the nature of the progenote community, evolution of complexity and metabolic diversity, and the prevalence of lateral gene transfer. This article would be appropriate reading for students/teachers at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level.
