Life sets off a cascade of machines

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Tlusty, Tsvi; Libchaber, Albert
• 署名单位: Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology (UNIST); Rockefeller University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-12010
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2418000122
• 发表日期: 2025-01-28
• 关键词: escherichia-coli; protein-synthesis; jebel irhoud; ribosome; origin; water; ACID; polyketide; natriegens; energetics

摘要

Life is invasive, occupying all physically accessible scales, stretching between almost nothing (protons, electrons, and photons) and almost everything (the whole biosphere). Motivated by seventeenth-century insights into this infinity, this paper proposes a language to discuss life as an infinite double cascade of machines making machines. Using this simplified language, we first discuss the micro-cascade proposed by Leibniz, which describes how the self-reproducing machine of the cell is built of smaller submachines down to the atomic scale. In the other direction, we propose that a macro-cascade builds from cells larger, organizational machines, up to the scale of the biosphere. The two cascades meet at the critical point of 103 s in time and 1 micron in length, the scales of a microbial cell. We speculate on how this double cascade evolved once a self-replicating machine emerged in the salty water of prebiotic earth.