Moontanman Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Oil droplets mimic early life Lack of genetic material no hindrance to life-like behaviour. By Jo Marchant Oil droplets that creep purposefully through their watery environment, metabolize fuel, sense their surroundings and perhaps even replicate--could these be precursors to life? That's the claim of a chemist with a controversial approach to modeling how Earth's first organisms scraped themselves together. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=oil-droplets-mimic-early-life&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20110224 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horza2002 Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 This has long been an idea of how the first primitive cells were formed...you only have to pour cooking oil into the kitchen sink to see how "cells" are formed in water. Although this is interesting that they move around...although im not convinced about the "metabolism" bit...the hydrolysis would occur with or without the cell surronding it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 It looks like a bunch of hype over not much. You can make a propelled boat by putting a little soap on the back, but no one would consider that alive, nor as having an ability to sense their environment, nor metabolism. Even worse, its entire existence is unnatural -- you won't see this in nature. Let them do this with naturally occurring chemicals and gradients, then I'd be impressed. It would probably also help if they went towards food rather than towards the nastiest base they can find. It is somewhat interesting for its simplicity though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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