Extreme Biology - Life at All Scales and Energies

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A number of fixations plaguing the biological science community relating to the pre-requisites for keeps is retarding the event of biology and also the seek for new life within the universe. These fixations work as smokescreens to obscure the myriads of alternative forms of life forms which will be thriving even in our scheme. Astrobiologists, notably at independent agency, seem to possess a dogmatic fixation on learning life solely at the organic chemistry level, a pre-occupation with water as a substrate for keeps, adamant on solely learning carbon-based life forms, restricted to a awfully slender temperature vary and scale; and not even noticing that each one the life forms that they need unreal in their wildest models ar solely supported particles at intervals the (physicists') normal Model.

Physics affects biology in a very additional elementary manner than even chemistry or organic chemistry. New developments in physics ought to open up areas to contemplate additional extreme life forms. If we discover matter and supersymmetric particles - would biologists then begin regarding|brooding about|pondering|considering|puzzling over|wondering} matter and supersymmetric life forms? ought to we tend to be talking about "quantum biology"? once physicists talk parallel universes, would biologists think about interdependence between life forms in parallel universes? Is Darwin's tree of life complete? wherever ar its roots?

Life at very little Scales - Nano and Quantum Life

Bacteria could also be no larger than ten microns; viruses no larger than one hundred micromillimeters; molecules concerning one nanometer and atoms concerning zero.1 micromillimeter. will scale impose a barrier to life or perhaps consciousness? If viruses ar thought-about life forms (as some leading astrobiologists argue) then they represent "nano-life".

Consciousness might even exist at the quantum scale. "In some strange manner associate negatron or a gauge boson [or the other elementary particle] appears to 'know' concerning changes within the surroundings and seems to retort consequently," says man of science Danah Zohar. a bunch at the Chaim Weizmann Institute in Israel has done a variation of the notable "double-slit" experiment. They used electrons, rather than photons, and ascertained however the resultant interference pattern (which indicates wave-like properties of the particle) dissipated the longer you watched the electrons undergo the slits. As a wave the negatron passes through each slits at the same time however if, in keeping with E Buks, it "senses" that it's being watched, the negatron (as a particle) goes through only 1 path, decreasing the interference pattern. Elementary particles (such as photons and electrons) seem to possess an exact degree of "intelligence" and awareness of the surroundings. celebrated plasma and particle man of science, David Bohm, says "In some sense a rudimentary mind-like quality is gift even at the amount of physical science. As we tend to head to subtler levels this mind-like quality becomes stronger and additional developed."

In a new field known as "quantum metaphysics", Jay king has planned that consciousness is as elementary a property to elementary particles as properties that create it "matter" or a "physical force" (for example, mass, spin and charge) (see aware Particles, Fields and Waves, 2007). And even as mass, spin and charge dissent from one particle to another; it's probable that totally different|completely different} particles have different degrees of consciousness. He has argued (see Jay king, Our Invisible Bodies, 2006) that consciousness will manifest betting on the degree of quantum coherence and also the intrinsic properties of the only particle. (This could also be cited because the "Quantum Coherence Theory of Consciousness".)

In learning particle consciousness we tend to should not get distracted by their scale. In fact, (under quantum field theory) particles ar excitations in a very field which will be infinitely massive. each particle incorporates a corresponding field. If a particle {is thought-about|is taken into account} a "unicellular life form" then a field of particles could also be considered a "multicelluar life form" - except that these "cells" get in and out of existence at intervals the sector. This clearly begs the question - is that the organic chemistry cell the tiniest unit of life? If not, then a biological revolution, additional necessary than the Corpernican revolution in terms of its impact on society, is round the corner.

Life at very massive Scales

Life in the least scales ar probable - together with at the planetary, stellar and galactic scales; and even the universe and multiverse. The Greek deity hypothesis has been planned by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. Jay king has planned life at cosmic and international scales by victimization the "plasma metaphysics" model that believes that an in depth internet of currents in house and on Earth exists that is each anatomically and physiologically kind of like a neural network within the human brain. (See ar we tend to Living in a very mammoth Brain? 2007) This internet of currents in house not solely feels like a neural network, it functions like one. we must always not be shocked to examine life being designed victimization associate magnetism substrate. A biochemcial cell's membrane is currently thought to operate sort of a semi-conductor.

Perhaps an idea experiment might be enlightening. Imagine yourself as a cell at intervals your brain fastidiously perceptive your surroundings with a nano-telescope. Would you concentrate on your brain as having the ability to support consciousness? What you'd see ar neural cells alternately firing and resting; chemicals speeding to synapses and also the zapping of nasty electrical currents - clearly not a awfully "habitable zone" for keeps or consciousness to exist - from your microscopic purpose of read. however we all know higher...

Could the plasma universe, with its network of currents, be a living, aware entity? Was the quark-gluon plasma ball that inflated throughout the large Bang a life form?

High Energy Biology - Life at High Energies and Temperatures

At high temperatures, molecules divide into atoms and atoms divide into a soup of sub-atomic particles known as plasma. (Partially ionized  gases are delineated  as "plasma".) Plasma type|body|organic structure|physical structure}s ar possible to be the foremost common life form within the universe, provided that plasma makes up quite ninety nine of our visible universe that is nearly all over ionized . this is often in stark distinction to complicated carbon-based life forms, that in keeping with the rare-earth element hypothesis planned by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, would be rare within the universe because of variety of things - together with the requirement for an appropriate vary of temperatures to survive.

Plasma is a perfect substrate for keeps at high temperatures. Plasma life forms would adapt to environments which might be thought-about hostile to carbon-based life forms. it's potential that plasma life forms were already gift within the gas and materials that fashioned the world four.6 billion years past. Carbon-based biomolecular life forms solely appeared one billion years later. Tsytovich and alternative scientists (including Lozneanu and Sanduloviciu, mentioned below) have planned that plasma life forms, in fact, spurred development of organic carbon-based life on Earth.

In 2003 physicists; Erzilia Lozneanu and Mircea Sanduloviciu of Cuza University, Romania, delineated  in their analysis paper lowest Cell System created in Laboratory by self-organisation (published in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, volume 18, page 335), however they created plasma spheres within the laboratory which will grow, replicate and communicate - fulfilling most of the normal needs for biological cells. The physicists "grew" spheres from some micrometers up to 3 centimeters in diameter. they're convinced that these plasma spheres provide a radically new rationalization of however life began and planned that they were precursors to biological evolution. Lozneanu plasma spheres will reproduce by replicating, rather like microorganism that ar typically thought-about "immortal" and don't endure "apoptosis" or programmed necrobiosis.

It is still a mystery in thought biology on however deoxyribonucleic acid originated. a global scientific team has discovered that within the gravity-free surroundings of house, particles in plasma can bead along to make string-like filaments which is able to then twist into coiled strands resembling deoxyribonucleic acid that ar electrically charged and ar drawn to one another. employing a laptop model of molecular dynamics, V N Tsytovich and his colleagues of the Russian Academy of Science showed (in their paper entitled From Plasma Crystals and coiled Structures towards Inorganic Living Matter, revealed within the New Journal of Physics in August 2007) that particles in plasma will endure self-organisation as electrical charges become separated and also the plasma becomes polarized. "These complicated, self-organized plasma structures exhibit all the required properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter", says Tsytovich, "they ar autonomous, they reproduce and that they evolve".

Past studies, subject to Earth's gravity, have shown that if enough particles ar injected into a low-temperature plasma, they're going to ad libitum organize into crystal-like structures or "plasma crystals". Jay king has characterised "subtle bodies" as plasma crystals in his 2006 book Our Invisible Bodies. He has written extensively concerning the anatomy and physiology of those bioplasma bodies generating a brand new field of analysis known as "plasma metaphysics".

According to plasma philosophy (see Jay king, Our Invisible Bodies, 2006), plasma is subject to self-organisation through each physical science and electrodynamics. Plasma life forms have numerous mechanisms for the absorption and distribution of energy - in alternative words a metabolic system. These embody each vortexes (equivalent to orifices in common biological systems) and filamentary currents (equivalent to tubes and circulatory systems in common biological systems) that ar structured by magnetic fields and driven by electrical fields. data is hold on within the nucleus of the bioplasma body as compressed wave-forms (using Fourier transforms) and used for replication. Plasma life forms are engulfed in a very membrane (like the membrane of a biological cell) and by selection admit charged particles (just just like the semi-permeable membranes of common biological systems that admit ions i.e. charged particles into the cell). These structures (vortexes, filaments, membranes and also the nucleus) are delineated  within the metaphysical and even spiritual literature quite a pair of,000 years previous in reference to what's usually remarked as "subtle bodies". With a membrane that separates the body from the surroundings, metabolic and data systems, these refined bodies ar, in fact, plasma life forms.
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