Mineral brew grows 'cells'
A mixture of simple chemicals produces fungus-like structure.
28 April 2004
PHILIP BALL
© Maselko / Strizhak / ACS
How to make a ‘mineral fungus'
It is an experiment you could do in a school chemistry lab. But it produces weird growths that, although made purely from inorganic materials, share some of the characteristics of living organisms.
Most chemical mixtures quickly settle into an unchanging state. So the fact that dynamic cell-like structures can arise spontaneously from a simple mixture is a surprise, says Jerzy Maselko of the University of Alaska in Anchorage and Peter Strizhak of the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Kiev, Ukraine, who made the discovery.
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