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Plasma Comes Alive
j_hirny writes "So, it seems that the widely acclaimed theory of how life begun, during hundreds of millions of years is, at least, not the only one which is being researched. As New Scientist report, a physicist managed to create life-alike beings made of plasma. They can replicate, grow and duplicate. They don't have amino-acids or DNA strains, of course, yet they may reveal something new about life's beginnings."
Sanduloviciu says this electric spark caused a high concentration of ions and electrons to accumulate at the positively charged electrode, which spontaneously formed spheres (Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, vol 18, p 335). Each sphere had a boundary made up of two layers - an outer layer of negatively charged electrons and an inner layer of positively charged ions.
Plasma cells are an interesting idea, but I doubt it's time to rip up the old textbooks yet. The 'nucleus' was only a collection of gas atoms. It kind of sounds like the researchers had to jump through hoops to get these 'cells' to grow or divide. Still, it might give us some new insights.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
I don't really see how these are cells like biological cells. It just a bunch of particles following electrostatics. Just because it resembles what biological cells do in a few ways doesn't mean that it's the 'beginning of life' or anything like that.
Similar things happen with particles in water. If you go to any water treatment plant and look at the flocculation tanks you'll see tons (literally) of particles colliding each other, forming new particles. They have natural organic matter and other crud absorbed to their surfaces, and if coniditions are right, they can break apart (too much shear).
It's interesting still, in the sense that anything that self assembles usually minimizes the total energy of a system in a 'neat' way, but I wouldn't rewrite the theory on how life begin, because of it.
From the Simpson's episode "Homer in Space".
Whether they were doing these things spontaneously (or in response to only environmental stimulii) would make a huge difference in how big this is.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
"the ability to replicate, to communicate information, and to metabolise and grow. He found that the spheres could replicate by splitting into two. Under the right conditions they also got bigger, taking up neutral argon atoms and splitting them into ions and electrons to replenish their boundary layers.
Finally, they could communicate information by emitting electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate at a particular frequency. The spheres are not the only self-organising systems to meet all of these requirements. But they are the first gaseous "cells".
Is a form of eletronic harmonic resonance communication? Is breaking apart in two and merging together reproduction? Given that water has surface tension (boundry layer), can communicate (ooh it vibrates), and reproduce (really vague definition here), water's alive by this vague definition.
Sanduloviciu may have found something interesting, maybe he didn't, but the wordplay and generalizations don't cut it.
-B
Sorry, I think your first assessment is right. There are few new insights here. The phenomenon described in the article sounds roughly like the formation, "mitosis," and migration of bubbles in a lava lamp. Okay, you can call these things cells. That's somewhat reasonable. But the researcher said, "the emergence of such spheres seems likely to be a prerequisite for biochemical evolution." That sounds like serious pop science quakery to me. It is only correct with the loosest interpretation of "prerequisite," "bio," and/or "evolution," and even then it's highly misleading.
It's viscous, it's a psuedoliquid! It can migrate down gravitational potentials! It can replicate itself by splitting (and even ostracize OTHER forms of polymers who try to get in between)! It vibrates, oh it vibrates! It absorbs water, it's drinking, it's drinking!
...
MY GOD, IT'S ALIVE!
(Yes, this is a joke)
Physics itself produces some amazing phenomenom. While it might be cutesy that some plasma is splitting and vibrating synchronously (everything vibrates, sigh. Lasers vibrate synchronously), it is not 'Alive'.
Favorite
This is about the same as blowing into a straw and watching bubbles come out of your soft drink and saying you've created life because the bubbles grow, shrink, split into two, and emit carbon dioxide energy when they bubble up to the top of the liquid.
So you can't tell if a "pattern" is alive unless you expose it to a "destructive obstacle"?
Bacteria will take no better attempts to survive than a forest fire. One is considered alive the other is not. How do you tell which one by your definition?
On the other hand, an electric current (a pattern of moving electrons if you will) through a coil will fiercely attempt its continuance when confronted by a destructive obstacle - you will get a nice spark if you break the circuit. Again, we don't consider electron currents to be alive.
Well, they can 'talk' to each other can't they? EM waves and stuff? What the article doesn't discuss is whether this is a significant phenomenon or not... Nobody's ever put a microphone to bubbles in coke.
I think a lot of people are missing some of the implications too.
Before true life can occur, there needs, I think, to be a process, a method, a life cycle, where something like a plasma ball, a soap bubble, or a fatty lipid ball, can be produced and propagated. You need to be able to, in the absence of real life, create an environment that encourages, protects, and shields the life-activity from what happens outside the life activity.
So plasma balls that can cleanly separate inside reactions from outside reactions is important, all the more so if they are self assembling from nothing; given enough time and random variables it's likely that one or two of them will form with something *interesting* trapped inside, something that will further enhance the operation of the plasma ball, and over time that may "evolve" into something a lot like life.
But first you need the plasma balls to trap the "interesting" bits first.
GPL Deconstructed
No crap. I have noticed that nobody here seems to be believing that the scientists involved in this experiment have created life, including the scientists involved in the experiment.
And the Universe is hardly random. It is, in fact, governed by strict principles of operation, those of which we currently understand and can manipulate we know as "laws of physics". Those principles not only permit the existence of life but may actively encourage life (as we know it) to develop. Whether you believe in God (or don't), understand that life developed as a direct result of the way in which our Universe functions, not in spite of it. Perhaps God designed the Universe: in that case he is responsible for life on Earth. Perhaps not. That question is best left to theologians. Science is only attempting to determine how the mechanics of the physical world apply to how life came about on this little planet, and how that life changed over time.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yes, that's the definition of "evolution denier": someone who refuses to face the facts.
Evolution has centuries of evidence supporting it. Creationism has nothing. Arguing with someone who thinks there is little evidence for evolution is like arguing with a flat-Earther.
It is no more "religion" than any other branch of science.
Nonsense. Science does not incorporate untestable and unfalsifiable hypotheses with no predictive power. That excludes supernaturalism. There's a reason why science does not consider the Zeus theory of lightning.
I could go around "explaining" every phenomenon in the world by saying, "God did it", but that doesn't make it science.
"Illogical"? Who are you to tell God how to do things?
False dichotomy.
The majority of theists also believe in evolution, just like they believe in the heliocentric theory of planetary motion -- despite the denials of a few nutjobs such as yourself.
Not even remotely true (not that evolution is based on "missing links" to begin with).