-Caveat Lector-
http://eeng.net/CS/blogs/mycall_et_al/archive/2007/08/10/quot-life-quot-found-in-inorganic-interstellar-dust.aspx
"Life" found in inorganic interstellar dust
by Vidura Panditaratne
Physicists have found evidence that inorganic dust with life-like
qualities exists in interstellar space, according to new research
published in New Journal of Physics that hint at the possibility that
life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as
its building blocks and also offer a possible new explanation for the
origin of life on Earth.
An international team has discovered that under the right conditions,
particles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical
structures which can then interact with each other in ways that are
usually associated with organic compounds and life itself.
V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of
Science, in Moscow, working with colleagues there and at the
Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany
and the University of Sydney, Australia, studied the behaviour of
complex mixtures of inorganic materials in a plasma, the fourth state
of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn
from atoms leaving behind a miasma of charged particles.
The researchers showed using a computer model of molecular dynamics,
that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organization as electronic
charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarized resulting in
microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew
shapes, or helical structures which are electronically charged and are
attracted to each other.
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, according to Tsytovich and his colleagues.
They can divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original
structure and can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours
and 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," says Tsytovich, "they are autonomous, they reproduce
and they evolve".
The plasma conditions needed to form these helical structures are
common in outer space, he added.
Plasmas can also form under more down to earth conditions such as the
point of a lightning strike and the researchers hint that perhaps an
inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial Earth, which then
acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know
today.
*
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