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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."
...but will not sell more records than Frampton.
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.
This is interesting in the light of speculation about life-forms living on the surface of suns. (As described, for example, in David Brin's Sundiver.)
Considering that a the surface of a sun itself consists of plasma, it's not improbable that spheres like in the experiment get formed there all the time. The question is whether there is any way those spheres could attain a more complex form of internal organisation, or if they remain stuck at that basic level.
My florescent desk lamp has been looking at me funny.
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.
"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
What, like ignoring the intellectual faculties given you by the Creator in favour of slavish devotion to some ancient collection of fairy tales?
No offence, but experiments with plasma aren't anything like as primitive as some of the things my Christian friends believe, such as the two creation myths in Genesis (although they never seem to have noticed that there are two, they just run with the cute serpent story).
Just my $0.02. You may now inform me that I am damned.
Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
min(1-p,exp(1/(1-p))).
Some people even throw an integration over the spelling errors in the publication into this formula. (Seiberg's famous bad spelling trace integral.)
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Dammit, now PETA is going to come after my new big screen.
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.
Gee. Why am I not surprised by this. Perhaps because I've heard of ball lightning ages ago. I find it odd that this article on Sanduloviciu doesn't even mention anything about it either.
n .txth tml
More interesting references.
http://www.amasci.com/tesla/ballignt
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/tesla/ballgtn.
Non sequitur: Your facts are uncoordinated.