Intriguing 'autocatalytic' reactions appear to be far more common than scientists had thought.

Alien life may not be carbon-based, new study suggests::Self-sustaining chemical reactions that could support biology radically different from life as we know it might exist on many different planets, a new study finds.

  • treefrog@lemm.eeEnglish
    222·
    1 year ago

    Self-sustaining chemical reactions…

    What a fun way to think of life (and thus myself).

    • LrdThndr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23·
      1 year ago

      Hydrogen is an element that, when left for long enough in sufficient quantities, begins to wonder where it came from.

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      1 year ago

      You can go one step further: life is just an area of low entropy keeping itself like that by increasing the entropy of its environment.

      We poop out randomness to keep ourselves not random.

    • Fuck spez@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      I mean that is literally what we’re made of. You know those PCR COVID tests? The underlying process just makes DNA/RNA do what they would otherwise do inside the body, outside the body. Put some you-goo through that same process and it just starts replicating all by itself. Everything that makes you unique that’s wasn’t also a product of your environment is digitally encoded in that double helix, and all it wants or knows how to do is ffuuuuuuuuccckkkkkk