New theory on how life began

[I_am_not_mafia]

And how exactly can "replication come later"? By definition alone life needs the ability to replicate or at least grow. If it can grow it can grow & split &thus replicate, but if it can't do either of those two things at all then it isn't life. And it isn't going to gain the ability to become life either.

By definition alone life has a metabolism. After all, you can be infertile and still be alive. Metabolism is the single defining feature shared by all forms of life.

You're also making the mistake of thinking alive / not alive. It's not a binary condition. Proto-life could be self organising, settling into stable states, minimising free energy yet not reproducing. After all, crystals grow by minimising free-energy using different materials in different environments. Then the next step is to reproduce. This can be as simple as splitting off and growing in a completely different way. The ability to replicate then makes the process more efficient. Each step is relatively small and plausible.

If you have replication, or even just reproduction first, then you need something to reproduce in the first place. You need to ask how the system was bootstrapped.

[Gawdzilla]

 
The problem though is that our universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life and it isn't.

What communications system does a civilization ten thousand years in advance of our own use?

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

The problem though is that our universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life and it isn't.

Why is that, do you think? Why, I mean, do you think the universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life?

Why do you think life didn't adjust itself to form and survive in Mars to form intelligent beings?
Afterall a quick Google search reveals that mars and earth formed at about the same time

[Gawdzilla]

Why is that, do you think?  Why, I mean, do you think the universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life?

Why do you think life didn't adjust itself to form and survive in Mars to form intelligent beings?
Afterall a quick Google search reveals that mars and earth formed at about the same time

When Mars didn't have a magneto-sphere long enough to protect its atmosphere, so the air just got blown away. EOF for life on Mars, probably.

[Whateverist]

The problem though is that our universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life and it isn't.

The noise hasn't made it to us yet.

I'm working on evolving some BOSE speakers personally.  


Any day now.

[The Grand Nudger]

What communications system does a civilization ten thousand years in advance of our own use?

A quiet one, I'm guessing...reducing loss in communication is paramount.  Loss that we would call "noise".  Signal drifting out to the ass end of the milky way to be picked up..maybe, by a bunch of really anxious primates no one knows about or would give a shit about if they did, is wasted energy.  I was wondering the same. We're significantly quieter than we were just a few decades ago, ourselves.

Why do you think life didn't adjust itself to form and survive in Mars to form intelligent beings?
Afterall a quick Google search reveals that mars and earth formed at about the same time

Why didn't life adjust itself to form intelligent beings on earth? 

Truth be told, our intelligent lives -here- were never a given, and they could be extinguished in a cosmic instant without a trace.  Life is adaptable, maybe inevitable, but not invincible. This would be as true on mars as it is on earth.

[ignoramus]

After watching a nice discovery channel episode the other day on how they think the earth gained all its water, and why the others didn't or lost it, makes you realise how delicate and relatively rare a goldilocks zone actually is.

[Alex K]

New theory could prove how life began and disprove God.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scienc...70114.html

But a new theory, proposed by a researcher at MIT and first reported in Quanta Magazine, proposes that when a group of atoms is exposed for a long time to a source of energy, it will restructure itself to dissipate more energy. The emergence of life might not be the luck of atoms arranging themselves in the right way, it says, but an inevitable event if the conditions are correct.

The explanations couldn't have been more vague. I basically learn from the article that "life arose because of the tendency of life to arise". Not very informative. And the article reads a bit odd with all those references to gloating atheists.

[ignoramus]

It makes me laugh Alex.
Why are they in such a hurry to find a natural explanation for abiiogenesis?
Do they think there's a slight chance that God was involved?

We may never find out. It still doesn't give a greater than zero chance of divine intervention.


Just because someone's an atheist, doesn't mean they can think critically. (as most here know)

[Fireball]

 
The problem though is that our universe should be "noisy" from all the other intelligent life and it isn't.

What communications system does a civilization ten thousand years in advance of our own use?

That, and the rate of diminution of the level of energy based on distance at a rate of about 1/R^2 is going to reduce the level of energy any receiver would pick up, at interstellar or intergalactic distances. Then, there is the actual transmission scheme. We had spark gap (Morse Code) in the beginning, and have progressed through several different types of schemes. If we all go to Digital Spread Spectrum, we'll probably disappear from the supposed alien's RF view. The energy is pretty spread out, and won't be picked up by any coherent receiver that doesn't have the decoding scheme...given that the signal isn't so attenuated already, at said receiver.