From: funk420@yahoo.com (luke)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.plasma
Subject: plasma life?
Organization: http://groups.google.com/


Another dubious article from newscientist.com..
Anyone have any other info on this experiment?



The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service

Plasma blobs hint at new form of life


19:00 17 September 03

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free
issues.

Physicists have created blobs of gaseous plasma that can grow,
replicate and communicate - fulfilling most of the traditional
requirements for biological cells. Without inherited material they
cannot be described as alive, but the researchers believe these
curious spheres may offer a radical new explanation for how life
began.

Most biologists think living cells arose out of a complex and lengthy
evolution of chemicals that took millions of years, beginning with
simple molecules through amino acids, primitive proteins and finally
forming an organised structure. But if Mircea Sanduloviciu and his
colleagues at Cuza University in Romania are right, the theory may
have to be completely revised. They say cell-like self-organisation
can occur in a few microseconds.

The researchers studied environmental conditions similar to those that
existed on the Earth before life began, when the planet was enveloped
in electric storms that caused ionised gases called plasmas to form in
the atmosphere.

They inserted two electrodes into a chamber containing a
low-temperature plasma of argon - a gas in which some of the atoms
have been split into electrons and charged ions. They applied a high
voltage to the electrodes, producing an arc of energy that flew across
the gap between them, like a miniature lightning strike.

Sanduloviciu says this electric spark caused a high concentration of
ions and electrons to accumulate at the positively charged electrode,
which spontaneously formed spheres (Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, vol
18, p 335). Each sphere had a boundary made up of two layers - an
outer layer of negatively charged electrons and an inner layer of
positively charged ions.

Trapped inside the boundary was an inner nucleus of gas atoms. The
amount of energy in the initial spark governed their size and
lifespan. Sanduloviciu grew spheres from a few micrometres up to three
centimetres in diameter.


Split in two


A distinct boundary layer that confines and separates an object from
its environment is one of the four main criteria generally used to
define living cells. Sanduloviciu decided to find out if his cells met
the other criteria: the ability to replicate, to communicate
information, and to metabolise and grow.

He found that the spheres could replicate by splitting into two. Under
the right conditions they also got bigger, taking up neutral argon
atoms and splitting them into ions and electrons to replenish their
boundary layers.

Finally, they could communicate information by emitting
electromagnetic energy, making the atoms within other spheres vibrate
at a particular frequency. The spheres are not the only
self-organising systems to meet all of these requirements. But they
are the first gaseous "cells".

Sanduloviciu even thinks they could have been the first cells on
Earth, arising within electric storms. "The emergence of such spheres
seems likely to be a prerequisite for biochemical evolution," he says.



Temperature trouble


That view is "stretching the realms of possibility," says Gregoire
Nicolis, a physical chemist at the University of Brussels. In
particular, he doubts that biomolecules such as DNA could emerge at
the temperatures at which the plasma balls exist.

However, Sanduloviciu insists that although the spheres require high
temperature to form, they can survive at lower temperatures. "That
would be the sort of environment in which normal biochemical
interactions occur."

But perhaps the most intriguing implications of Sanduloviciu's work
are for life on other planets. "The cell-like spheres we describe
could be at the origin of other forms of life we have not yet
considered," he says. Which means our search for extraterrestrial life
may need a drastic re-think. There could be life out there, but not as
we know it.


David Cohen


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