Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2014 January 23

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January 23

New abiogenesis theory - needs some explanation.

This article has been making the rounds through digg and reddit today:

  https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140122-a-new-physics-theory-of-life/

It's a proposed solution to the 'abiogenesis' problem - how did life emerge from non-living chemistry. It makes a claim that I don't really understand - and I'm hoping someone can explain it for me. The core idea here is in this quote:

"This means clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments."

Clearly, if that's true - then inorganic chemistry is subject to a kind of evolutionary pressure to produce molecules that are better at pushing entropy up - and I could see how that would favor the production of things like RNA which are very good at that. But I don't understand why the statement I quoted above should be true. SteveBaker (talk) 15:05, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Skimming the (freely accessible) linked journal article, it looks like he's taking dissipative structures, in the vein of Ilya Prigogine, and then using some other first principles to formulate a birth-death process (eq. 9), applied to an interacting set of chemical species. The analysis of which brings about this claim. Note the few paragraphs after eq. 11 in the journal article, which seems to be relevant to your pull quote. At the moment, I'm inclined to agree with another quote from the article:

" “Jeremy’s ideas are interesting and potentially promising, but at this point are extremely speculative, especially as applied to life phenomena,” Shakhnovich said." SemanticMantis (talk) 20:11, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I haven't taken the time to fully consider the article, nor is it my field, but certainly it is an interesting idea. The blurb above makes this sound a bit like Rupert Sheldrake, but I notice that 'reson' returns no matches from the PDF, nor do I see anything to give the impression that external forces give any exceptional degree of direction to what sort of life can result. I do worry, though, that physicists have a tendency to sell us old products in new packaging. We've long known that, say, photosynthesis has a very high efficiency, something like 40% of what is theoretically possible. Is this related to the measurement made in this paper? (I'm not really qualified to say) Normally, when we see life is very efficient, we suppose it is well adapted, and even early life at some point needs to be fairly well adapted, within the limits of its simple chemistry. I should also mention that [1] is an interesting idea. I don't think the "zombie vortices" actually have a genome (though again, there's some serious math that would need to be looked at more carefully) but it is certainly intriguing to see the first tangible indication in the direction that life might have evolved on the Sun. Wnt (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Identify object please

Can anyone identify these? They look like light bulbs but I am not seeing any wires or electrical connections. The picture was uploaded to Commons in support of a hoax on Wikipedia (now deleted). The file needs renaming as it still carries the fictitious fungus name these were supposed to be, but this is certainly no fungus! SpinningSpark 15:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

To me, It looks like a bunch of door-knobs that someone has hung in a tree as a wind chime. APL (talk) 16:21, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed that they look like door knobs. But, if it was uploaded as an April Fools' Day prank, there doesn't need to be any other reason for them to be on the tree than that. StuRat (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The description actually said: "All of the above information is theoretical and intended for use in a science-based art project. All ideas and images are my own." Nil Einne (talk) 20:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

I read that too (just before I deleted it), but I fail to see how that helps identify it. SpinningSpark 12:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

My reply was indented at StuRat because I was replying to StuRat. StuRat said 'But, if it was uploaded as an April Fools' Day prank, there doesn't need to be any other reason for them to be on the tree than that' and APL said 'someone has hung in a tree as a wind chime'. While neither of these can be ruled out as possibilities (although I'd note that the image was uploaded quite a few days after April Fools' Day so was either very late or intended for this year), we have information coming from the uploader that it's a 'science-based art project' which suggests it could be neither (and that even the uploader is acknowledging that it's not a real fungi) but StuRat is correct that 'there doesn't need to be any other reason for them to be on the tree than that' even if the 'that' may not be what they suggested.

In terms of the question, I agree they look like door knobs. I was a little suprised by the colour, but a quick search suggests perhaps they aren't that uncommon. Either way, since the file had already been renamed and there didn't seem to be any remaining dispute, it didn't seem that important to mention.

It's disappointing someone would try this even if they did include a disclaimer making it clear the fungi is fictional and I'm grateful that you dealt with this. And while I'm sorry if you feel this is distracting from you question, if that's your concern I also don't really understand why you would need so many people to say the same thing for something which doesn't really matter anyway (if they aren't door knobs does it really matter? It's not like anyone is really that likely to use the photo relying on the identification and if absolutely necessary the description could always be altered saying it's only probable these items are door knobs or something similar).

Since the issue came up (not started by me) from people who were trying to help, I thought it helpful to offer some clarification they may not have seen of the possible reason for these objects being on the tree.

Note that as emphasised by APL's post, this does actual help with identification. If you think they are supposed to represent something other than a weird 'science based art project' fungi, you may unneccesarily limit the possibily of what they could be. Similarly to the April Fools' Day suggestion, once you appreciate that they could easily be there for no reason other than a weird 'science based art project' supposed to look like a fungi and apparently partly being carried out on wikipedia, the only real limit is what is available to someone carrying out such a project.

Nil Einne (talk) 14:11, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

What I take to be the previous name, Caeruleos Bulbus, is Latin for "blue bulb", according to Google Translate. They look kind of like glass doorknobs, but the bolts look more like what you would find on a drawer-pull. As to what it's "supposed to be", it actually looks kindof like a cluster of pale-blue grapes. We can't tell the exact scale of this work, so it makes analysis a little difficult. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)