Of course they are. A self organizing system has to be dumping entropy somewhere - 2nd Law.
The sum of what anybody considers "life beings" is "increasing its order" - that's an observation. There's no "might" about it.
is life about the survival of the fittest chemistry?
- Thread starter globali
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much of the latest research in cancer immunotherapy is focused on how colonic bacteria change the antitumor effectiveness of cancer immunotherapeutic drugs. Thats crazy how much impact can these bacteria have, and we are only starting to discover this field.
Also some spiders can live in the air for quite a while. I think its called aeroplankton and the phenomenon ballooning.
When i was younger i was amazed that people were present in both America and Europe-Africa well before Colombus or the Vikings. I was puzzled on how the obstacle of the ocean was overcame. But then i looked at a map and realized that the land is actually connecting them in the North. Lol
Not sure how aboriginals in the pacific islands or Australia got there in the first place though. Does anyone know the current theory?
Observation? Do you have a reference for this observation or measurement of entropy decreases?
I seem to remember self replicating process began with a type of clay
No not god clay
Clay that has at its basic microscopic level a formation which act as a negative template which assist the chemicals which fall into the template to remain together and have reactions
The formation leaves the clay and acts as a template reproducing the clay negative template
Sorry cannot be more precise but long ago when I was looking at the article
No not god clay
Clay that has at its basic microscopic level a formation which act as a negative template which assist the chemicals which fall into the template to remain together and have reactions
The formation leaves the clay and acts as a template reproducing the clay negative template
Sorry cannot be more precise but long ago when I was looking at the article
If you have a DNA template, then i think it is not so difficult to imagine how this can act as a template for free molecules. The bonds they form are relatively simple.Clay that has at its basic microscopic level a formation which act as a negative template which assist the chemicals which fall into the template to remain together and have reactions
The formation leaves the clay and acts as a template reproducing the clay negative template
That was a rib templateI seem to remember self replicating process began with a type of clay
No not god clay
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
a) I've already given you examples of entropy reduction when long chain molecules are formed.
b) Life requires the formation of long chain molecules
c) Ergo, the growth of an organism involves local entropy decrease.
Measuring entropy decrease during the growth of an organism directly would be extremely difficult, as it would require exact quantitative analysis of all chemical inputs, all waste materials released and heat generated, over a very extended period of time. It would be a massive and highly error-prone exercise in chemical analysis and calorimetry, to serve no real purpose, since the outcome is in principle known anyway, as explained above by steps a-c.
So this demand for a direct "observation", which you have made several times, is impractical and unnecessary. The absence of such direct data provides you with no reasonable grounds to doubt that normal chemical thermodynamics applies.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Clay is such a wonderful medium, because it has more surface area than any other medium.
A cubic centimeter (sugarcube) of clay will coat an entire tennis court.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Nobody has done that.
I have shown you that your question about entropy reduction, as organisms develop, is paralleled by crystallisation and polymerisation. But that is by no means the same thing as "equating" these processes with life, of course.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
:scratches head:
So will a cubic centimeter of gold, or egg white.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Yes, but is gold is not really a good growth medium (I qualify) and there is very little of it. Clay is amazing stuff, according to Hazen. It is abundant and was the medium used in calculating (estimating) the total (bio)chemical reactions earth performed during its lifetime.
"two trillion, quadrillion, quadrillion, quadrillion" chemical reactions, increasing in complexity during some 4 billion years, and ongoing!
There are still some 1500 possible chemical (mineral) species missing (as yet undiscovered).
And that precludes imported chemistry from stellar stuff, such as gold.......
.
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Australia has a very unusual history. Apparently almost all of Australia sank under water, before it rose again.
This catastrophic event is the reason for the survival of strange species peculiar only to Australia and New Zealand.
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Awesome!! thank you
will watch it with first chance
all went under water? you mean there was only a small part above water and all animals were concentrated there for a while?
we are not disagreeing here. We are just seeing this from a different angle. According to c) you are isolating the process of the growth of an organism and i don't blame you. This is what i mean for us by cherry picking. It is also not wrong to say that the chemical reactions of this process of growth are not isolated from other ones (food, recycling of nutrients, etc)
If you want to measure the entropy of life as the sum of reactions or as an entire phenomenon, then you agree that it would likely increase its entropy (because waste and other stuff are included). This does not contradict your comment, it just views it from a different angle (more counter-intuitive but equally right).
The reason i think this is worth mentioning is that this angle has some advantages because it offers a more natural explanation for life, as everything becomes a result of how we perceive a series of naturally occurring complex chemical reactions of life as whole event (by being a part of the results). No need to wait eons for extremely unlikely events to happen and prevail, or some order to be created and to subsequently propagate, etc.
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Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Strictly speaking it is New Zealand which is mostly submerged, but that's because it broke away from Australia.
Zealandia - Wikipedia
It has the most bizarre evolutionary expressions, such as waterfowl that nest a mile inland in the forest and walk to the water and then fly to fish!? Fascinating study in evolution.
And another rare find,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5762892/
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Well obviously the entropy of the whole system increases, we know that from the 2nd Law of TD. There's nothing "counterintuitive" about that.
The growth of an organism requires energy to drive it and generates waste products and low temperature heat.
I'm afraid I do not understand what point you are making.
a paradise and a playground for evolutionary biologists. better than working in an office!! lolStrictly speaking it is New Zealand which is mostly submerged, but that's because it broke away from Australia.
Zealandia - Wikipedia
It has the most bizarre evolutionary expressions, such as waterfowl that nest a mile inland, in the forest!? Fascinating study in evolution.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5762892/
Few land predators. Supremely capable sky predators. Hard for waterfowl to launch from the ground in dense forest. Safer for the bird and more cryptic for the nest to walk. http://nhc.net.nz/index/extinct-new-zealand/extinct.htm
Wood ducks - and a couple of others in North America - often nest a long way from the water. The hatchlings have quite a walk in front of them. One of my neighbors - farmer, with no open water on or visible from any of his hundreds of acres let alone his house - once cut down a dead tree in his front yard and had a brooding female fly out of it as it fell. None of the eggs survived - he felt kind of sorry, but it wasn't a place one would expect to find a duck nest.
We are surrounded by evolutionary oddities everywhere - some just more familiar than others. Hummingbirds. Skunks.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190205204102.htm
this might be an an interesting article
this might be an an interesting article