Scientists trying to create artificial life generally work under the assumption that life must be carbon-based, but what if a living thing could be made from another element?
One British researcher may have proven that theory, potentially rewriting the book of life. Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow has created lifelike cells from metal — a feat few believed feasible. The discovery opens the door to the possibility that there may be life forms in the universe not based on carbon, reports New Scientist.
Even more remarkable, Cronin has hinted that the metal-based cells may be replicating themselves and evolving.
"I am 100 percent positive that we can get evolution to work outside organic biology," he said.
I have always found artificial life and intelligence an intriguing topic, not only for its scientific and evolutionary questions, but the philosophical and moral ones as well. While I find these advancements great from a human perspective, others find this scary and immoral.
Not only that, but the definition of life is so vague and amorphous that it can lead to all sorts of interesting and complicated issues. What do you think? If these iCHELLS (Inorganic Chemical Cells) can evolve and photosynthesize, are they alive? Are we almost there or is this it?
EDIT: I did some more research, but there is not much newer published about these. This article is from September of last year. Please share any other new links and news you find and I will add them to the OP.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. -Charlie Chaplin
THIS IS AWESOME!! It honestly doesn't surprise me, as I've read lots of interesting reads about life and such. I think people need to get over this idea of the human life being sacred and start letting us explore other forms of life or ways to create artifical-/pseudo-life. If these inorganic cells do actually evolve then transformers might be real!
Aside the OP, I like reading about intelligence in plants and animals because it's a different idea of "life" and "intelligence" that's not the same kind of life or intelligence we as humans exude. Plants operate on a days, months, years time-frame where we humans operate on a seconds, minutes, hours time-frame. Things like cellular life solving mazes for food and such.
psillypsybic!
TheAmazombie United States. June 21 2012 07:42. Posts 3629
On June 21 2012 07:26 r.Evo wrote: iCHELLS? What does Steve Jobs have to do with these?
Great find, I wonder what happened to that project.
LoL. That is what I thought as well. It is short for Inorganic Chemical Cells (updated OP.) I find it interesting that he is breaking down the definition of life to the basic idea of "evolvable matter." It is not about searching for carbon in the search for life, it is now searching for that which can evolve and change in the pursuit of survival.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. -Charlie Chaplin
Sounds so implausible. Seems a bit light on the evidence side as well. Lots of good ideas but little hard evidence or results..
I mean "hinting" at evoultion in the cells? What the hell does that even mean? Either they evolve or they do not.
Either the media is doing this guy a huge disservice by hyping and misconstruing his claims or he is an idiot for going public if he has nothing to show for it. He should have kept this under wraps until he had at least something to show for it imo.
This is a great TED talk about life from non-life, I recommend everybody watch it to understand the subject.
This is interesting, but a bit different. He goes out of his way to still define life as organic (carbon-based). He actually stresses this a bit when creating the protocell. That was really interesting though in how they actually "evolve" and replicate.
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. -Charlie Chaplin
aeroblaster United States. June 21 2012 08:26. Posts 202
This is interesting, but a bit different. He goes out of his way to still define life as organic (carbon-based). He actually stresses this a bit when creating the protocell. That was really interesting though in how they actually "evolve" and replicate.
It's the same concept though right? They're not alive but the chemicals they're made of still behave like life. It really shows how life could have started in many ways. What happens when chemicals cross the line to become life? The chemicals we're made of were once not alive, but over billions of years we have become alive. What happens to make them cross the line from non-life to life? Can we make that happen with other chemicals and metals?
That's what I find so interesting.
Courage is solid.
BallinWitStalin Canada. June 21 2012 08:26. Posts 273
What I gather from the article is that basically he made membranes that are selectively permeable using metals, and it's possible to make "mini" versions of these membranes within larger ones. Also makes dubious claims about giving them some means of self-replication, but it's unclear how they do that. They have no code, though, so it's unclear how they do that.
Either way, it's meh. Honestly, people need to realize just how frickin' efficient bacteria and eubacteria are at everything. They are definitely the dominant form of life on the planet. People need to stop thinking of them as "life", which puts them on some kind of pedestal. Bacteria are pretty much machines. They're tiny, small, unbelievably efficient and well designed machines that take advantage of any amount of available energy in any kind of environment/ecosystem, and use it to replicate themselves.
This is why I don't see a real future in nano-technology. Who cares if something's metal? Just because something uses lipids and proteins does not make it have less potential "efficiency". Carbon based life is fucking efficient, and it exploits basically all free energy available on the planet in one way or another. We are constantly discovering crazy shit all the time when it comes to microbiology, which is a vastly understudied realm of biology. Fuck making metal cells. Just get a better understanding of the ones that exist already (we know jack shit about microbial ecosystems, by the way. Grossly understudied), and then engineer them to do what you want them to.
Maybe lipid based membranes have some kind of limitation these ones might not. Short of wanting to shoot cells into the sun, though, I don't see the point. We know there's cells out there that can only live in temperatures well above boiling water, and there's cells that live well below freezing (dunno what the record is for that, though). I really have no idea what you could practically want metal cells for, when lipid based ones are already do everything really efficiently. And besides, he's made membranes. Big deal. Do you realize how insanely complex even the smallest bacterial genome is? Scientists don't even understand the full potential interactions available between genes in a simple bacterial cell.
Honestly, I recommend people take a cell biology course in university, just to gain an appreciation for the elegent (and stupidly complex) machine that is the living cell.
Just try to think about the number of individual bacterial cells on this planet, and that's only at this moment, think how many cells have lived and died throughout those years.
3.8 billion years of evolution on a scale we can't begin to comprehend get its it right. Who needs metal, when microbial life`s pretty much perfect already? Beyond "oh, that's kinda cool..." reactions, I don't really think this kind of stuff is very useful.
Edit: Oh yeah, and on the topic of the definition of life: It's kinda arbitrary. There's lots of good reasons for how it's defined (I can't remember the rigid qualifications), but one of them is that it's contained in a membrane, which is why this guy is calling his stuff "life". It's also why viruses don't get the nod, as they have no cellular activity contained within a membrane. Personally, I think that's too restrictive, as I think viruses should count as living organisms. It's still a debated topic, but again, the line in the sand is a little arbitrary.
Last edit: 2012-06-21 08:31:23
TheAmazombie United States. June 21 2012 08:30. Posts 3629
This is interesting, but a bit different. He goes out of his way to still define life as organic (carbon-based). He actually stresses this a bit when creating the protocell. That was really interesting though in how they actually "evolve" and replicate.
It's the same concept though right? They're not alive but the chemicals they're made of still behave like life. It really shows how life could have started in many ways. What happens when chemicals cross the line to become life? The chemicals we're made of were once not alive, but over billions of years we have become alive. What happens to make them cross the line from non-life to life? Can we make that happen with other chemicals and metals?
That's what I find so interesting.
Oh, yeah, sorry, I was not trying to sound like I was blowing over that. I was just trying to point out that part of the point was that life could be anything, not just carbon-based as we see it. Life could be anything, come from anywhere, which, I feel, is what makes the search for extra-terrestrial life so much more interesting and difficult that most people would imagine it. I mean, we are searching for signals of water, light, and carbon, but maybe life could be made out of mercury, neon, or even hydrogen in some form.
While I admit there is not a ton of presented evidence in these articles, it is the idea, the search for defining life in all its glory that is beyond imagination.
What I gather from the article is that basically he made membranes that are selectively permeable using metals, and it's possible to make "mini" versions of these membranes within larger ones. Also makes dubious claims about giving them some means of self-replication, but it's unclear how they do that. They have no code, though, so it's unclear how they do that.
Either way, it's meh. Honestly, people need to realize just how frickin' efficient bacteria and eubacteria are at everything. They are definitely the dominant form of life on the planet. People need to stop thinking of them as "life", which puts them on some kind of pedestal. Bacteria are pretty much machines. They're tiny, small, unbelievably efficient and well designed machines that take advantage of any amount of available energy in any kind of environment/ecosystem, and use it to replicate themselves.
This is why I don't see a real future in nano-technology. Who cares if something's metal? Just because something uses lipids and proteins does not make it have less potential "efficiency". Carbon based life is fucking efficient, and it exploits basically all free energy available on the planet in one way or another. We are constantly discovering crazy shit all the time when it comes to microbiology, which is a vastly understudied realm of biology. Fuck making metal cells. Just get a better understanding of the ones that exist already (we know jack shit about microbial ecosystems, by the way. Grossly understudied), and then engineer them to do what you want them to.
Maybe lipid based membranes have some kind of limitation these ones might not. Short of wanting to shoot cells into the sun, though, I don't see the point. We know there's cells out there that can only live in temperatures well above boiling water, and there's cells that live well below freezing (dunno what the record is for that, though). I really have no idea what you could practically want metal cells for, when lipid based ones are already do everything really efficiently. And besides, he's made membranes. Big deal. Do you realize how insanely complex even the smallest bacterial genome is? Scientists don't even understand the full potential interactions available between genes in a simple bacterial cell.
Honestly, I recommend people take a cell biology course in university, just to gain an appreciation for the elegent (and stupidly complex) machine that is the living cell.
Just try to think about the number of individual bacterial cells on this planet, and that's only at this moment, think how many cells have lived and died throughout those years.
3.8 billion years of evolution on a scale we can't begin to comprehend get its it right. Who needs metal, when microbial life`s pretty much perfect already? Beyond "oh, that's kinda cool..." reactions, I don't really think this kind of stuff is very useful.
Edit: Oh yeah, and on the topic of the definition of life: It's kinda arbitrary. There's lots of good reasons for how it's defined (I can't remember the rigid qualifications), but one of them is that it's contained in a membrane, which is why this guy is calling his stuff "life". It's also why viruses don't get the nod, as they have no cellular activity contained within a membrane. Personally, I think that's too restrictive, as I think viruses should count as living organisms. It's still a debated topic, but again, the line in the sand is a little arbitrary.
I understand and agree in many ways, but to think of the possibilities of life based only on our rigid sense of "efficiency" is part of the point of the entire thing to me. While I understand that carbon-based life is highly efficient within our environment (Earth) and other known possibilities, the idea is that IF life can exist in other forms, based off of other chemicals and base elements, that opens to door to the idea that entire systems could exist somewhere to support such a form. There could be systems where having a metallic base is the most efficient and therefore may win out evolutionarily speaking. I am not saying it is that useful in our current state as humans on earth, but the idea I find fun and interesting. I am sorry that you disagree with that. I do agree that more people need to be educated on such things though.
Last edit: 2012-06-21 08:39:13
We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. -Charlie Chaplin
On June 21 2012 07:52 Grend wrote: Sounds so implausible. Seems a bit light on the evidence side as well. Lots of good ideas but little hard evidence or results..
I mean "hinting" at evoultion in the cells? What the hell does that even mean? Either they evolve or they do not.
Either the media is doing this guy a huge disservice by hyping and misconstruing his claims or he is an idiot for going public if he has nothing to show for it. He should have kept this under wraps until he had at least something to show for it imo.
Science almost never works the way that you find something and know everything about it in 2 weeks. A few years ago some chemists got a noble Price for research about a catalytic reaction from over 150 years ago. If he has first results that are good, it's a sensation and he is right to publish this.
hmm... i expected this to turn out quite differently... oO || join the StarDust Fanclub today!
On June 21 2012 08:26 BallinWitStalin wrote: What I gather from the article is that basically he made membranes that are selectively permeable using metals, and it's possible to make "mini" versions of these membranes within larger ones. Also makes dubious claims about giving them some means of self-replication, but it's unclear how they do that. They have no code, though, so it's unclear how they do that.
Either way, it's meh. Honestly, people need to realize just how frickin' efficient bacteria and eubacteria are at everything. They are definitely the dominant form of life on the planet. People need to stop thinking of them as "life", which puts them on some kind of pedestal. Bacteria are pretty much machines. They're tiny, small, unbelievably efficient and well designed machines that take advantage of any amount of available energy in any kind of environment/ecosystem, and use it to replicate themselves.
This is why I don't see a real future in nano-technology. Who cares if something's metal? Just because something uses lipids and proteins does not make it have less potential "efficiency". Carbon based life is fucking efficient, and it exploits basically all free energy available on the planet in one way or another. We are constantly discovering crazy shit all the time when it comes to microbiology, which is a vastly understudied realm of biology. Fuck making metal cells. Just get a better understanding of the ones that exist already (we know jack shit about microbial ecosystems, by the way. Grossly understudied), and then engineer them to do what you want them to.
Maybe lipid based membranes have some kind of limitation these ones might not. Short of wanting to shoot cells into the sun, though, I don't see the point. We know there's cells out there that can only live in temperatures well above boiling water, and there's cells that live well below freezing (dunno what the record is for that, though). I really have no idea what you could practically want metal cells for, when lipid based ones are already do everything really efficiently. And besides, he's made membranes. Big deal. Do you realize how insanely complex even the smallest bacterial genome is? Scientists don't even understand the full potential interactions available between genes in a simple bacterial cell.
Honestly, I recommend people take a cell biology course in university, just to gain an appreciation for the elegent (and stupidly complex) machine that is the living cell.
Just try to think about the number of individual bacterial cells on this planet, and that's only at this moment, think how many cells have lived and died throughout those years.
3.8 billion years of evolution on a scale we can't begin to comprehend get its it right. Who needs metal, when microbial life`s pretty much perfect already? Beyond "oh, that's kinda cool..." reactions, I don't really think this kind of stuff is very useful.
Edit: Oh yeah, and on the topic of the definition of life: It's kinda arbitrary. There's lots of good reasons for how it's defined (I can't remember the rigid qualifications), but one of them is that it's contained in a membrane, which is why this guy is calling his stuff "life". It's also why viruses don't get the nod, as they have no cellular activity contained within a membrane. Personally, I think that's too restrictive, as I think viruses should count as living organisms. It's still a debated topic, but again, the line in the sand is a little arbitrary.
Woah there! Nanotechnology is a massive field and to make some blanket statement like that shows how little about it you truely understand. There is a hell of a lot of nanotechnology based on using cells and organic structures, most nanotechnology application is actually medicinal and as such is necessarily organic! Most scientists understand basic cell biology (and do in fact take a biology course as freshman in university); I doubt they could even begin to comprehend creating synthetic cells without some knowledge of the way actual cells operate.
On the purpose of creating metal cells/lifeforms, philosophically it can provide insight to our own evolutionary beginnings, but it is also interesting! Science is about the pursuit of knowledge and this guy wants to see if he can make metal life, good for him.
As to whether these samples are life, and what actually constitutes life, I feel that the very idea of trying to define something so entwined with our existence is so ridiculously hard. I would only go as far as to say anything with a metabolism is a life form, but not exclusively.
"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it is difficult to discern whether or not they are genuine." - Abraham Lincoln
I'll buy into it when I see objective consensus. I'm sorry but I've seen too many free energy, nickle fusion spanish castle magic threads to accept a professor and some guy, two blogs and a slew of youtube videos as beyond incredulity.
Let's see some accredited research papers.
우정호 KT_VIOLET 1988 - 2012 While we are postponing, life speeds by
Shock710 Australia. June 21 2012 08:59. Posts 2925
