Baum · @baum
108 followers · 43 posts · Server social.digital-artifacts.net

A New Idea for How to Assemble Life

If we want to understand , such as ourselves, says we must account for the entire of how such entities came to be.

quantamagazine.org/a-new-theor

#originsoflife #complex #constructions #assemblytheory #history

Last updated 1 year ago

Florence Lenaers · @flloaers
48 followers · 60 posts · Server mathstodon.xyz

“Cronin and Walker figured that if a molecule is abundant enough to be detectable at all, its assembly index can indicate whether it was produced by an organized, lifelike process. The appeal of this approach is that it doesn’t assume anything about the detailed chemistry of the molecule itself, or that of the lifelike entity that made it. It’s chemically agnostic.”

— Philip Ball, A New Idea for How to Assemble Life

🔗 quantamagazine.org/the-gut-mic

#biosignatures #originsoflife #evolution #assemblytheory

Last updated 1 year ago

Florence Lenaers · @flloaers
48 followers · 60 posts · Server mathstodon.xyz

& a nice opportunity to revisit pieces related to assembly theory.

“While that’s an exciting prospect for forthcoming missions to worlds like Titan and Europa, Cronin and Walker have bigger goals in mind. For example, the theory implies a temporal directionality that has nothing to do with thermodynamics but derives simply from combinatorics: there is a natural order in which objects can appear. Assembly, Cronin says, is a fundamental quantity on a par with energy and entropy. And assembly theory can be applied widely: to technology, linguistics, evolution. Did the sponge have to precede the fish? Did Tristram Shandy have to precede Finnegan’s Wake? I await answers.”

— Philip Ball, All in order

🔗 chemistryworld.com/opinion/is-

📄 Stuart M. Marshall et al. Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry
🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-232 (🔓 open access)

#biosignatures #originsoflife #evolution #assemblytheory

Last updated 1 year ago

Hari Tulsidas :verified: · @haritulsidas
246 followers · 1340 posts · Server masto.ai

The Vital Question by Nick Lane is a game-changing book about the origins of life. It explores why sex exists, why there are only two sexes, why we age and die, and how energy is the key to understanding all of these questions.

theguardian.com/technology/201

#thevitalquestion #nicklane #originsoflife

Last updated 1 year ago

CellBioNews · @cellbionews
58 followers · 1428 posts · Server scientificnetwork.de

Oooh. Now I don't feel so old. :)

Writer Fuel: The "Building blocks of life" recovered from asteroid Ryugu are older than the solar system itself.

limfic.com/2023/04/19/writer-f

#writerfuel #jaxa #hayabusa2 #originsoflife #ryugu #astromomy #space #asteroids

Last updated 2 years ago

Jim Donegan ✅ · @jimdonegan
1462 followers · 4301 posts · Server mastodon.scot
CellBioNews · @cellbionews
46 followers · 1016 posts · Server scientificnetwork.de
CellBioNews · @cellbionews
43 followers · 954 posts · Server scientificnetwork.de
Stephen Cook · @sccook
36 followers · 648 posts · Server mastodonapp.uk

is a small attractive Cotswold town in . Most of the time, nothing exciting happens, but on 28 February 2021 a meteorite landed there. No harm done, and fortunately some chunks of the meteorite were recovered quickly, and have now been studied.

theconversation.com/a-brief-hi
newsie.social/@TheConversation

#winchcombe #gloucestershire #astronomy #meteorite #asteroid #originsoflife #water

Last updated 2 years ago

CellBioNews · @cellbionews
24 followers · 489 posts · Server scientificnetwork.de
CellBioNews · @cellbionews
20 followers · 285 posts · Server scientificnetwork.de
Bo Jacobs · @bojacobs
852 followers · 508 posts · Server hcommons.social

"Inside Ancient Asteroids, Gamma Rays Made Building Blocks of Life. A new radiation-based mechanism adds to the ways that amino acids could have been made in space and brought to the young Earth."

Quanta: quantamagazine.org/inside-anci

"Last spring, scientists revealed that the chemical composition of the asteroid includes 10 amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

But where did these amino acids come from? The amino acids flowing through our ecosystems are products of cellular metabolism, mostly in plants. What nonbiological mechanism could have put them in meteorites and asteroids?

Scientists have thought of several ways, and recent work by researchers in Japan points to a significant new one: a mechanism that uses gamma rays to forge amino acids. Their discovery makes it seem even more likely that meteorites could have contributed to the origin of life on Earth."

#dna #originsoflife #panspermia #asteroids

Last updated 2 years ago

Jim Donegan ✅ · @jimdonegan
1286 followers · 3003 posts · Server mastodon.scot