Could life have started in a lump of ice?
November 5, 2008The universe is full of water, mostly in the form of very cold ice films deposited on interstellar dust particles, but until recently little was known about the detailed small scale structure. Now the latest quick freezing techniques coupled with sophisticated scanning electron microscopy techniques, are allowing physicists to create ice films in cold conditions similar to outer space and observe the detailed molecular organisation, yielding clues to fundamental questions including possibly the origin of life. Researchers have been surprised by some of the results, not least by the sheer beauty of some of the images created, according to Julyan Cartwright, a specialist in ice structures at the Andalusian Institute for Earth Sciences (IACT) of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) and the University of Granada in Spain.
Recent discoveries about the structure of ice films in astrophysical conditions at the mesoscale, which is the size just above the molecular level, were discussed at a recent workshop organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) and co-chaired by Cartwright alongside C. Ignacio Sainz-Diaz, also from the IACT. As Cartwright noted, many of the discoveries about ice structures at low temperatures were made possible by earlier research into industrial applications involving deposits of thin films upon an underlying substrate (ie the surface, such as a rock, to which the film is attached), such as manufacture of ceramics and semiconductors. In turn the study of ice films could lead to insights of value in such industrial applications.
But the ESF workshop's main focus was on ice in space, usually formed at temperatures far lower than even the coldest places on earth, between 3 and 90 degrees above absolute zero (3-90K). Most of the ice is on dust grains because there are so many of them, but some ice is on larger bodies such as asteroids, comets, cold moons or planets, and occasionally planets capable of supporting life such as Earth. At low temperatures, ice can form different structures at the mesoscale than under terrestrial conditions, and in some cases can be amorphous in form, that is like a glass with the molecules in effect frozen in space, rather than as crystals. For ice to be amorphous, water has to be cooled to its glass transition temperature of about 130 K without ice crystals having formed first. To do this in the laboratory requires rapid cooling, which Cartwright and colleagues achieved in their work with a helium "cold finger" incorporated in a scanning electron microscope to take the images.
As Cartwright observed, ice can exist in a combination of crystalline and amorphous forms, in other words as a mixture of order and disorder, with many variants depending on the temperature at which freezing actually occurred. In his latest work, Cartwright and colleagues have shown that ice at the mesoscale comprises all sorts of different characteristic shapes associated with the temperature and pressure of freezing, also depending on the surface properties of the substrate. For example when formed on a titanium substrate at the very low temperature of 6K, ice has a characteristic cauliflower structure.
Most intriguingly, ice under certain conditions produces biomimetic forms, meaning that they appear life like, with shapes like palm leaves or worms, or even at a smaller scale like bacteria. This led Cartwright to point out that researchers should not assume that lifelike forms in objects obtained from space, like Mars rock, is evidence that life actually existed there. "If one goes to another planet and sees small wormlike or palm like structures, one should not immediately call a press conference announcing alien life has been found," said Cartwright.
On the other hand the existence of lifelike biomimetic structures in ice suggests that nature may well have copied physics. It is even possible that while ice is too cold to support most life as we know it, it may have provided a suitable internal environment for prebiotic life to have emerged.
"It is clear that biology does use physics," said Cartwright. "Indeed, how could it not do? So we shouldn't be surprised to see that sometimes biological structures clearly make use of simple physical principles. Then, going back in time, it seems reasonable to posit that when life first emerged, it would have been using as a container something much simpler than today's cell membrane, probably some sort of simple vesicle of the sort found in soap bubbles. This sort of vesicle can be found in abiotic systems today, both in hot conditions, in the chemistry associated with 'black smokers' on the sea floor, which is currently favoured as a possible origin of life, but also in the chemistry of sea ice."
This is an intriguing idea that will be explored further in projects spawned by the ESF workshop. This may provide a new twist to the idea that life arrived from space. It may be that the precursors of life came from space, but that the actual carbon based biochemistry of all organisms on Earth evolved on this planet.
Source: European Science Foundation
Nov 06, 2009 |
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I find his statement/warning that the ice can form biological patterns and not every preserved pattern may have been evidence of life much more groundbreaking.
The reverse micelles were grown by osmosis, the were shaken, divided into smaller ones and they competed for surfactants, which enabled them to grow faster. At the moment, some droplet catched the precursor of surfactants, which enabled them to growth even faster, they've had win the evolution. By such way, the life origin was of evolutionary character from its very beginning.
The hypothesis of life formation inside ice hypothesis has some relation to intelligent behavior of water clusters, but from my perspective its kinetic lacks the necessary speed, which is required for sufficent evolution during rather brief period of terraformation.
http://focus.aps..../v15/st7
Why we cannot call this system a live?
So stop dummy babbling and try to focus:
Why we cannot call the system above described a live? Correct answer would give you a clue, what the living system is or not by distinct and universal way.
Feynman: "There's plenty of room at the bottom"
Zephir: "Everything is relative, this rule is no exception, because relativity is relative too."
Man more than half of those words you are saying here have no meaning man.And if you think you understand them man you are blind.So more of them you combine man there will be even more no meaning. Universal theory is so simple man that there must be no more than five words in there man. And your AWT man has so many words man that with its entropy could explode the whole universe man.
The oily dropplets above described can concume the surfactant molecules, but they cannot rid of them. So that their "metabolism" will stop less or more latelly with no mercy.
Try to propose some nonliving system, which can retreat matter by analogous way, like living organisms - and I would consider your vague claims. But not before.
But so what man. You could describing this forever man. This and that and this and that. But it doesnt matter man. None cares except you man. Not even fucking animals man. Actually its you who are denying philosophy but at the same time its only you who are doing a philosophy man cause 'god' gave you human harddisk-expresing connection. Man do you get it? Im not saying there is no universal theory. Im just saying that a definition of your point of view is not the one required to maybe understand an universal theory if its somewhere. Thats all man. And if you dont understand the basic relation between the universal point of view and your 'humanly alive' pointo of view then you will never realize it.
Man but its you who is trying to play god not me man. Im just trying to be the universe. So to project that into our case. You are trying to convince me so hard that i have a fucking meaning. And lets say if you would then yes you would become god. But man its me who knows there is no god so i wont give you that medal man.
So we should always distinguish the situations, when information has no meaning from objective reasons - or just because the listener is too silly to comprehend it.
Without it I can say easily, the claim "what you are saying here have no meaning" can be interpeted as "I'm to stupid to understand the meaning of it"...
Man i think you just prove my point. You should see by now that I have nothing to prove btw. And what means prove btw? Is prove just prove or is there again a parade of words to define prove? And then again parades of words to define that parade?
Every claim without proof is just a tautology without true value. Just an existence of implication (a causality gradient, which defines the time arrow) is what gives an temporal character to your claim. The claim without reasoning is just an chaotic babling. This is simply the way, by which Aether is working. The chaotic motion of molecules inside of gas is invisible for us. Only the places, where the motion of molecules is organized into gradient are part of observable reality.
So at the moment, when you'll not include the words like "BECAUSE" into your claims, the true value of such claims cannot be tested and reproduced by others and as such they've no true value at all, being untestable in real time.
The predicate logic is based on implications. Try to learn always support your claims by some relevant evidence or implication, which supports your claim.
By AWT the claims itself aren't important at all, because they cannot be validated. What is important are the logical connections of these claims. The theory is logical structure, where evidences/proofs are more important, then the postulates or theorems.
And man you are talking like we already realized the universal theory man. I mean do you ever actually read what you type?
I dont need to man. Im dead. Dead things dont need to prove anything to be dead. But as long as you dont prove me that i have a meaning that long man there will be no meaning. And man your dog is dead also, but he might move.
It is man. And i already told you. Cause you read what you type and i adore what i type. It was a tricky question man. But of course, you didnt get it.
It's easy to claim something. The fun part begins at the moment, you should prove such claim. We should agree, until you prove, you're dead, whole rest of causality chain of your claims has its true value undefined.
So, how do you want to prove, you're dead?
You can repeat it ten-times without problem. But it still doesn't replaces the proof. This is the same problem: a selreferenced claims without implication. A tautologies.
The logic based on tautologies has no true value defined. With such approach you could invent something interesting only occasionally.
It's just you, who is claiming here - so we should expect an evidence of it from you, not from me. Don't you think?
Maybe it's simple, so we should expect a simple proof. Without it it's just another tautology.
You're wasted case, man. You cannot even write a single sentence by reproducible and testable way. The dealing with wasted cases is wasted time for me.
Cant you see that all you can do is puzzle entropy? And wasnt it you who defined the entropy? And cant you see that you just cant stop to puzzle that entropy? How come is it you then to ask me to prove you stupidity? Its not me who is defining that means puzzling entropy. Its you. So youll need to puzzle my proof yourself. And hey blind man. Thats exactly hat you are doing. Cheers.May i still help you somehow?
Can such rhetorical question serve as a relevant proof of green color of Moon or whatever else?
A relevant proof consist of implication. And implication consist of antecedent and consequent related by conditional connective.
Without it you can babble everything abour everything out of control. Frankly, try to learn something basic about predicate and boolean logic, before trying to prove something here next times.
With such vague thinking you can always demonstrate, we cannot distinguish between live and dead matter, for example - but such proof will lack a relevancy as well. When you'll follow the rules of logic consistently, you will see, this fuzziness isn't so universal, as you probably believe.
You simply forget the quantization, which introduces a groups into our reality. A certain group of living objects has some common properties, while the other hasn't by the same way, like the group of electron particles differs from positrons.
You should live with such perspective as well. For example, the life cannot evolve in vacuum or inside of Earth from quite distinct reasons.
It means, an Universe is uncertain, but just up to certain limit, due the limited speed of information spreading. After all, this is why we can observe some reality at all.
"claiming, the living matter doesn't differ from dead one" thats not a claim. Its you whos claiming that it does differ! I mean cant you really see a pattern of your own false thinking?
Man i really wish i could help you. Its obvious that your brain is AWT. Dont worry you are universal and very intresting. But the puzzles that comes out of your AWT man gives no meaning to anything on this planet man.
Therefore I can expect, you'll able to intepret my stance as easily, as the stance of yours. The AWT learns people the plurality in thinking, but not vagueness: every stance has its own defined set of conditions / validity scope.Should we go to Mars together?..;-)
For example, the testable prediction of AWT is, the origin of life is related to phase interface of foam, because the highest density of causal energy spreading is just here. Therefore the theory of life formation in ice is interesting, but not for terresterial life formation. It can become relevant for panspspermia hypothesis, for example. The dense core of comets can contain the supercooled phase of ice and it has a much more time for its evolution, then the terresterial life. So that the fact, the reactions proceeds slowly in ice isn't so crucial here.
http://findarticl...689/pg_2
The true secret of ice is hidden in the behavior of water clusters, which can behave like living organisms, maintaining their structure and shape by somewhat tricky mechanism involving a quantum mirage phenomena. Such behavior would require a deep temperatures, when the water is behaving like complex polymer. But the water still must remain fluid, so such state is relevant just glassy watter hidden under deep pressure inside of comets and planetoids.
I can still consider the existence of such living matter an extremelly speculative, though. The Oparin's model of life formation works well for me.
Yes
The amount of sense you make is inversely proportionate to the number of posts you make.
Your not saying anything of substance,... if you are a joke, great we got it,... lets move on already! If not, then it appears the asylum has purchased a computer.
Ice from space would evaporate in the upper atmosphere.
A universal theory is possible as long as it involves the observer's a-priori conceptual framework, .. as long as it's about phenomenon.
And let me answer myself.The book is about stephen hawking.
Try reading the philosophy of the scientific method and knowledge, starting with Descartes, Liebniz, Hobbes, Lock, and especially Hume and Kant, .. you may like them more than the positivists.
I've read that one some time ago,.. I don't recall what his point was, but I doubt that he said not possible in principal,... as I said everything within the relm of human interaction can be modeled intellectually and consistently within that scope, otherwise it would not be accessable to begin with.
I realize that , but you seem to not care for the positivists attitude, so maybe Kant would be more rational on the subject of epistemology than Sartre.
And if they are not different from the universal point of view. Then i dont know.Lets just say whatever.
And thanks for proving my point!
You can start a topic or comment on existing ones.
http://i19.photob...vel1.jpg
What's more I don't think many of your contributions actually relate to the topic that initiated your contributions.
Furthermore, I am not sure anybody could read all of your comments posted above and be sane to start with. There is just so many comments and so much life to live that it is a contradiction.
Most people have something useful to say sometimes, and I am sure you are no exception but if you could just control yourself a little bit the rest of us just might be able to find out what that is.
I may well agree with you on a lot of points - but I am not sure if I want to immerse myself in your entire argument presented above, I just don't think I will live that long.
And Alizee should have had more sense than to debate with you here or you should have had more sense than to debate with him. One of you should have had more sense at least.
Man. If i could i would help you. But its obvious that i cant.And why care for number of posts or comments?I am a scientist man. I dont count.And you man?You still see no sense? Man looking at those things up here, i see more sense the whole universe thing. But im sorry for you!I mean you see i told you that words arent enough!And no one believe me!
Man!If i do that i would kill the universal thoery forever man!
Don't you guys have anything else to do??
And this is insanity opera my friend not even close to a comedy!Comedy is for blind people anyway.
And man! You should understand that by now!Do you still believe in a famous formula E=mxc??Its true!Its famous!And nothing more than that!Haha.Damn that guy was brilliant with a great planetary IQ. But hey haha he had no universal IQ!
Hehe!And you will fill the planet with your definition code!
See, again that didn't make any sense. What does my future to do with the fact that no one knows what your saying in your posts.
One would have to quit their job to read all of the posts you made above, and yet still not know what your point is.
I will ask again, what is the core idea you are trying to convey? Start a thread once physOrg forums are back up.
A lot. I mean if you dont understand that then i dont know. There is no words to further explain this. Sorry.
Are you kidding me,.. does this mean no more posts on whatever subject it is you're posting on? Somehow I doubt it.
That all of you who are exploring the universe aka looking for an universal theory are riding a blind horse on a blind road. Also whether you are talking about any kind of existence your code doesnt make any sense except for its own purpose. Thats a fact not idea. And what i tried to present you is 'the intro' of the universal theory. But its obvious that you didnt understand it, cause it might be a little to late for all of you to ever come back where you were. You know, while i was doing a research and stop talking with humans and just observing them for 7,5 years i realize one interesting thing. The more they are talking the more stupid and blind they are. It can all be seen in the eyes if you really know how to look at those eyes. And the only possible conclusion was, the more code you offer them->more stupid and blind. And thats where you are going. Now you know what does your future to do with the fact that no one knows what im saying.There are two different processes possible with your thinking bubble my friend. One is using brain and the other one is understanding brain. No one seems to understand his brain to me and i havent meet anyone by now.
No not true.Everything is explained so no further answers are needed as they just boost the entropy of the class.
No for me. But as it looks like its yes for you. And thats what you dont get it. Im not dealing with a blind planetary theory as you do. Im dealing with the universally constructed universal theory. And i presented you 'the intro point and a case' how to transfer your thinking bubble brain toward that point of view.
And codes like that my friend just prove my point.
And to help you again with your thinking-language-expression relation, there is no like in principal or whatever universal theory. There is just the universal theory.
This applies to your posts.
Yes. You are right. But you should know by now that i dont wanna talk, and its only you who make me talk. You gave me the codes remember? Anyway my friend, I made such conclusions when i was 2 years old.How old are you anyway?
What?
If you were able to make "such conclusions" at 2 then my age is irrelevant. I assure you I am older than 2.
I "dont wanna talk" anymore either. I think I'll act on that impulse. Have fun with your monologue.
Do you remember where did you get that 'What?'?
O.K., now why would that be the case, why is the pursuit of a consistent knowledge of the physical world a blind road?
Instead of just stating this over and over, man, can you show with rational principals that this is a dead horse to begin with?
And where did you get that from?All those words of no universal meanings?
Again just for you my friend.You see where you are?On the left with a brain damage defining everything and trying to manipulate with nonsense all the existence with your threshold brainwash radio. Thats where you are. And if you take a look on the right side my friend there is me. And you and your failures are nothing more than universal facts to me. So?You still wanna babble you code?
Why?I mean wtf you care anyway??Dont you have anything better to do then to read this article?And dont you have anything better to say than what you just babbled? And to far??How can you go too far in the science??Oh you just proved why you are on the left side of the paragraph!Thanks. And you would just trash such a beautiful conversation?Man buy new human brain!And truth always hurts my friend!
"It is clear that biology does use physics," said Cartwright. "Indeed, how could it not do?"But of course! Maybe also physics is just a part of biology??You see thats a case of a very progressive thinking.
And where did i get that from??You told me!Haha!You gave me those codes i just had to combine them a little bit different!Haha!More universally!And i bet you still dont know where did you get yours!Hehe.
Unfortunately the moderators are either non-existent or are incompetent. The PhysOrg forum was allowed to be flooded with porn spam for weeks on end with zero response from them. :(
Is that VelvetPinkTroll's intent? To drive out the interesting with its Dennis Hopper 1960's inspired (if inspired is a word that applies to trolls)brain damaged drivel.
Did anyone else notice that its straight out of the stream of unconsciousness dialog Dennis had in Apocalypse Now?
Go watch a new movie PinkTroll. Learn some new dialog. Even Dennis can't figure out why he is still alive. I suspect your his equivalent of The Picture of Dorian Grey.