A Test for Life Versus Non-Life (Carl Zimmer, July 31, 2024, NY Times)
Life, the scientists argue, emerges when the universe hits on a way to make exceptionally intricate things.
The book arrives at an opportune time, as assembly theory has attracted both praise and criticism in recent months. Dr. Walker argues that the theory holds the potential to help identify life on other worlds. And it may allow scientists like her to create life from scratch.
“I actually think alien life will be discovered in the lab first,” Dr. Walker said in an interview.
Dr. Walker went to graduate school planning to become a cosmologist, but life soon grabbed her attention. She was struck by how hard it was to explain life with standard physics theories. Gravity and other forces are not enough to produce the self-sustaining complexity of living things.
As a result, scientists still struggled to explain how an assortment of chemicals reacting with each other might give rise to life. Scientists had no way to measure how life-like a group of chemicals were, in the way they might use a thermometer to measure how hot something is. […]
Dr. Cronin focused on the fact that the proteins and the other molecules that make up our bodies do not jump into existence. They have to be assembled step by step from simpler building blocks.