A paper in the Journal of Physical Chemistry today reports that if you mix the right chemicals, a fungus-like structure spontaneously forms with a membrane across which reactions pass, and which continues to “grow” indefinitely, according to a Nature Science report.
The authors of the paper conclude:
This system may produce multicellular chemical structures, and separation of daughter cells form the mother cell has been observed. It is probable that a variety of inorganic systems could be constructed showing the same kind of behavior that we reported here. The spontaneous formation of cellular chemical systems that are sustained far from equilibrium may be an important step in understanding the possibility of the formation of different forms of life on other planets under other conditions.
Every month, it seems, the chemical difference between life and spontaneous reactions, is reduced, a process that has been happening since the early 19th century. But still some require intelligent intervention in the face of all evidence…
21 Comments
M. · 27 April 2004
But it's still a, ur, well, uh, whatever the hell it is.
Seriously, you ought to post a recipe. Ignoring the ID issue entirely, this is cool.
John Wilkins · 27 April 2004
If you have access, the details are available online.
M. · 27 April 2004
The article you linked to had a link to the journal article, but they wanted money. So I passed.
Gyan · 27 April 2004
PDF: Spontaneous Formation of Cellular Chemical System that Sustains Itself far from Thermodynamic Equilibrium.
Ian Musgrave · 28 April 2004
G'Day All
A pellet of calcium chloride with copper chloride is submerged in a solution of 1.5 M of sodium
carbonate containing hydrogen peroxide, sodium iodide, and starch.
The weight of the pellet is 0.20 g with diameter of 6.0 mm. The pellet contains 7% copper(II) chloride. (The pellet has been prepared using
Perkin-Elmer press) The initial concentrations of the reagents in the solution are the following: 0.08 M sodium iodide
0.08 M hydrogen peroxide.
10 mL of 2% soluble starch solution was
added to the solution. The total volume of the system is 250 mL.
The structures form 10 min after mixing all reagents.
Guess what I am doing tomorrow.
Jason Malloy · 28 April 2004
Abiogenesis with Emeril - BAM!
Joe Dunckley · 28 April 2004
It's clear that if you take any one of the materials out the reaction would not occur, and therefore God must have didit!
Wesley R. Elsberry · 28 April 2004
Tracy P. Hamilton · 28 April 2004
They used some experiments without starch. The starch was to detect molecular iodine through the
classic formation of the blue-black starch-idine complex.
Joel · 28 April 2004
Hasbro already a patent on this.
Ruidh · 28 April 2004
It seems as though the argument for ID boils down to: "I don't understand how it could have happened by itself, therefore it must have been done by some outside agent." That's posessing even more hubris than creationists accuse evolution supporters of having.
Corwin · 28 April 2004
My gods, this is so cool!!! I'm gonna have to try this. Are these ingrediants readily available?
Stoffel · 28 April 2004
Count me as highly skeptical. Seems very easy to duplicate, so we should know soon. My guess would be that the setup wasn't clean.
Paul Gross · 28 April 2004
There was a great furore at the beginning of the last (20th) century about models like this. The field was called "synthetic biology." Stephane Leduc, one of its best-known practitioners, published his acclaimed THE MECHANISM OF LIFE in 1910! The passion for such stuff died out in the early 1930s with the rise of cell physiology, biochemistry, and genetics. Nobody was under any illusions about these systems being other than simple models. But then, nobody with any sense argued that only G-D can make something complex from something simple.
Gerald Cairns · 28 April 2004
Hi Folks,
I have not been following this Site until now nor do I have the time for other experimentation than economic survival but thought the subject of the subject of inorganic growth worthy of the referal to the ABC Scienc Matters Site URL above.
This describes hairs of silver growing in a concentrated cyanide solution - see page for details. I have various thoughts on this but at the very least it must involve some form of attractive process coupled with diffusion.
Sorry must go.
In case the URL above does not show up here it is again.
http://www.angelfire.com/space/smatters/nanobes.html
Regards
Gerald Cairns
Ian Musgrave · 28 April 2004
Sorry, no Video, I didn't bring the video camera as it's in being fixed, and I didn't have time to organize the Departmental digital camera.
Nonetheless I reproduced the experiment, with the following caveats. I used potassium iodide rather than sodium, and I didn't have a pellet press (a pharmacology department without a pellet press!!!) so I used calcium and copper chloride prssed into a shallow plastic cup to prevent the calcium/copper salts from just dissolving straight away (and yes everything was tissue culture-level clean (ie REALLY clean), with analytical grade reagents and dionized-distilled water.
It worked, more or less. Almost as soon as I put the cup on the bottom of the beaker, strange tentacular funnels began to grow and pump iodine out, I also got the more mushroom-like structures as well, but the tentacles were amazing. The tentacles were brown, and looked like a field of anemones. Unfortunately the oxygen produced in the reaction made the cup float, and when it did that the tentacles broke off. The broken off pieces continued to grow and even "bud", as was reported. Unfortunately, due to the repeated rising and sinking the really pretty fungoid structures didn't last very long.
So I have to find a pellet press, and do the whole thing again, this time with rapid recording. I'm also trying to find a heavy cup that wont float, to record the tentacles.
John Wilkins · 28 April 2004
I have asked Ian to video this when he reruns the experiment. If he can and does, I'll convert that to a Quicktime movie and put it on this site later. It sounds very cool (a word that seems to just insist on being applied to this).
EmmaPeel · 2 May 2004
Aaron · 2 May 2004
Ian Musgrave · 2 May 2004
Aaron
I'm in Australia, and we don't have quarters. I am unsure of the precise metallurgy of our 5 cent pieces, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were reactive in this mixture, also, sticky tape is likey to react with the hydrogen peroxide.
A shot glass is too big, I'm looking at small glass reaction vessels used in microanalysis.
Cheers! Ian
euan · 3 May 2004
The US quarter is about the same diameter as the Australian 10 cent coin, but the quarter is thinner. Australian 'silver' coins are 75% Cu 25% Ni alloyed. The quarter appears to be plated.
(I bet the whole world needed to know this.)