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One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 4:13 am
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...g-crystal/
Quote:“Here we show that with a simple, synthetic active system, we can reproduce some features of living systems,” Palacci said. “I do not think this makes our systems alive, but it stresses the fact that the limit between the two is somewhat arbitrary.”
Chaikin notes that life is difficult to define, but can be said to possess metabolism, mobility, and the ability to self-replicate. His crystals have the first two, but not the last.
One more gap quickly being closed...
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 4:15 am
Beautiful :')
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 4:45 am
Fascinating. Thanks for the link.
 Where are the snake and mushroom smilies?
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 6:37 am
(February 1, 2013 at 4:13 am)Ryantology Wrote: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...g-crystal/
Quote:“Here we show that with a simple, synthetic active system, we can reproduce some features of living systems,” Palacci said. “I do not think this makes our systems alive, but it stresses the fact that the limit between the two is somewhat arbitrary.”
Chaikin notes that life is difficult to define, but can be said to possess metabolism, mobility, and the ability to self-replicate. His crystals have the first two, but not the last.
One more gap quickly being closed... "Near Living"? Hardly. Crystals are built using pure chemical mechanics. Living cells are not. Why would any serious scientist make such a statement??
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 6:43 am
yeah... living cells use physical mechanics as well... 
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 9:51 am
(February 1, 2013 at 4:45 am)Confused Ape Wrote: Fascinating. Thanks for the link.
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 11:23 am
(February 1, 2013 at 6:37 am)Aractus Wrote: (February 1, 2013 at 4:13 am)Ryantology Wrote: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...g-crystal/
One more gap quickly being closed... "Near Living"? Hardly. Crystals are built using pure chemical mechanics. Living cells are not. Why would any serious scientist make such a statement??
"Jesus" is one step closer to the unemployment line. Deal with it.
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 12:09 pm
(This post was last modified: February 1, 2013 at 12:12 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(February 1, 2013 at 11:23 am)Minimalist Wrote: (February 1, 2013 at 6:37 am)Aractus Wrote: "Near Living"? Hardly. Crystals are built using pure chemical mechanics. Living cells are not. Why would any serious scientist make such a statement??
"Jesus" is one step closer to the unemployment line. Deal with it.
Committing fraud to gain following amongst the most retarded, maladjusted and impressionable amongst an illiterate, superstition addled society in abysmally terminal decline counts as "employment"?
(February 1, 2013 at 6:37 am)Aractus Wrote: (February 1, 2013 at 4:13 am)Ryantology Wrote: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/0...g-crystal/
One more gap quickly being closed... "Near Living"? Hardly. Crystals are built using pure chemical mechanics. Living cells are not. Why would any serious scientist make such a statement??
And you imagine there is actually parts of that doesn't rise to the standard of "pure chemical mechanics", do you?
Well, your god might have tried, but evolution triumphed and replaced all the imaginary garbage you imagined your god to have inserted into you with pure, high quality, laws of physics abiding "chemical mechanics".
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Quote:Committing fraud to gain following amongst the most retarded, maladjusted and impressionable amongst an illiterate, superstition addled society in abysmally terminal decline counts as "employment"?
Absolutely. And very lucrative, too.
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RE: One step closer to proving abiogenesis? Scientists create "Near-Living Crystal"
February 1, 2013 at 12:33 pm
(February 1, 2013 at 6:37 am)Aractus Wrote: "Near Living"? Hardly. Crystals are built using pure chemical mechanics. Living cells are not. Why would any serious scientist make such a statement??
Chemical mechanics indeed.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage...s-14373960
Quote:Drawing on a background in ore geochemistry (many ores are precipitated by hydrothermal vent systems), Russell postulates that alkaline vents, akin to the modern Lost City vent system in the mid-Atlantic (Figure 3), were the ideal incubators for life, providing a steady supply of hydrogen gas, carbon dioxide, mineral catalysts, and a labyrinth of interconnected micropores (natural compartments similar to cells, with filmlike membranes; Lane et al. 2010). Alkaline vents are, in essence, electrochemical reactors that operate in a state far from equilibrium.
But the centerpiece of Russell's conception lies in natural proton gradients. Four billion years ago, alkaline fluids bubbled into what would then have been mildly acidic oceans (CO2 levels were about a thousand times higher than they are today, and CO2 forms carbonic acid in solution, rendering the oceans mildly acidic). Acidity is just a measure of proton concentration, which was about four orders of magnitude (four pH units) higher in the oceans than in vent fluids. That difference gave rise to a natural proton gradient across the vent membranes that had the same polarity (outside positive) and a similar electrochemical potential (about 200 millivolts [mV] across the membrane) as modern cells have.
Russell has long maintained that natural proton gradients played a central role in powering the origin of life. There are, of course, big open questions — not least, how the gradients might have been tapped by the earliest cells, which certainly lacked such sophisticated protein machinery as the ATP synthase. There are a few possible abiotic mechanisms, presently under scrutiny in Russell's lab and elsewhere. But thermodynamic arguments, remarkably, suggest that the only way life could have started at all is if it found a way to tap the proton gradients
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