Interstellar Dust Could Be "Alive" 332
reezle writes "An international team has discovered that, under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organized into helical structures. These structures can interact with one another in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and with life. Not only do these helical strands interact in a counterintuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers. For example, they can divide to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbors. And they can even evolve into yet more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma. 'These complex, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter,' said the lead researcher. 'They are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve.'" The research, published in the New Journal of Physics, was carried out using a computer model of molecular dynamics.
Black Cloud (Score:5, Insightful)
Pink Floyd actually predicted this. (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm, life in the suns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Organic does not mean "alive" (Score:3, Insightful)
Fixed that.
Definition drama? (Score:2, Insightful)
It was then changed after urea was synthesized from then non-organic sources. At this point, the definition of organic was expanded to include non-alive stuff.
Now that the definition has strayed away from organic being 'alive', this is a discovery of non-organic aliveness?
I sense some circularity, but can't lay my finger on it... even though my analysis is probably over-simplified and possibly wrong
Cheers!
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:1, Insightful)
What it shows, is how life could have started on Earth (or where our life originated from). It shows how complex molecules could form naturally to produce replication, and the beginings of could one day become a cell. Its very helpful to illistrate how life can start, rather then the perhaps common view that life just started, the cell just came together, rather then life evolving from complex molecular structures.
The actual article (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/9/8/263/n
Something that bothers me about the article is this paragraph (which has no references, though he claims this to be a well-known problem):
"Self-organization of any structure needs energy sources and sinks in order to decrease the entropy locally. Dissipation usually serves as a sink, while external sources (such as radiation of the Sun for organic life) provide the energy input. Furthermore, memory and reproduction are necessary for a self-organizing dissipative structure to form a `living material'. The well known problem in explaining the origin of life is that the complexity of living creatures is so high that the time necessary to form the simplest organic living structure is too large compared to the age of the Earth. Similarly, the age of the Universe is also not sufficient for organic life to be created in a distant environment (similar to that on the Earth) and then transferred to the Earth."
Emphasis mine.
Sounds a little like this guy's been buying into "Intelligent" design a little too much...
Strangely, the rest of his article doesn't look terrible to me. I do not do plasma physics--slept through that class--but I do publish scientific articles for a living.
You hit the nail on the head. (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, this is just a computer model of some possible arrangements of particles. Even if the model is perfectly correct, it doesn't mean these living dust particles are actually out there in the universe.
For example, a computer model could tell you that a 12-foot tall flightless bird would thrive in New Zealand [wikipedia.org], and it would be right... except that they don't exist (having been hunted to extinction a few centuries ago).
Computer-simulated life is very exciting and cool, and can help scientists understand the evolution of living things (such as with the Avida [wikipedia.org] system). But it can't PROVE that a particular kind of life actually exists in the natural world.
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, no. You are speaking gibberish. My guess is you're under 30.
Re:Hmm, life in the suns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mods under 30 (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's not like you're stuck with it forever - I know people in their 60's who were forced to essentially go through the convergence process again because the world changed around them - e.g. politically going from a naive liberalism to a world weary, cynical conservatism. Or from being apolitical to being rabibly left wing.
So don't worry, as you get older you won't continue to believe the things you believe now. You'll still live in interesting times as the double edged Chinese phrase has it. Much of the things you believe now will turn out to be catastophically wrong and an greater exposure to the world will force you to accept this.
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:4, Insightful)
int main ( ) {
printf ( "I demand that my political rights are recognized!\n" );
return 0;
}
Re:Simulated inorganic life .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mods under 30 (Score:4, Insightful)
Son, I can pretty much guarantee that when you are 50, you will look back and see the person you were at 30, at 35, and the things you believed, and you will decide that you had been a callow, strident numbskull.
Don't feel bad, it happens to lots of us. You're just a more definitive case.