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Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars

Motivated by the need to paint a more general picture of what life is—and could be—with respect to the rest of the phenomena of the universe, we propose a new vocabulary for astrobiological research. Lyfe is defined as any system that fulfills all four processes of the living state, namely: dissipat...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bartlett, Stuart, Wong, Michael L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32316364
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life10040042
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author Bartlett, Stuart
Wong, Michael L.
author_facet Bartlett, Stuart
Wong, Michael L.
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description Motivated by the need to paint a more general picture of what life is—and could be—with respect to the rest of the phenomena of the universe, we propose a new vocabulary for astrobiological research. Lyfe is defined as any system that fulfills all four processes of the living state, namely: dissipation, autocatalysis, homeostasis, and learning. Life is defined as the instance of lyfe that we are familiar with on Earth, one that uses a specific organometallic molecular toolbox to record information about its environment and achieve dynamical order by dissipating certain planetary disequilibria. This new classification system allows the astrobiological community to more clearly define the questions that propel their research—e.g., whether they are developing a historical narrative to explain the origin of life (on Earth), or a universal narrative for the emergence of lyfe, or whether they are seeking signs of life specifically, or lyfe at large across the universe. While the concept of “life as we don’t know it” is not new, the four pillars of lyfe offer a novel perspective on the living state that is indifferent to the particular components that might produce it.
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spelling pubmed-72357512020-05-22 Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars Bartlett, Stuart Wong, Michael L. Life (Basel) Article Motivated by the need to paint a more general picture of what life is—and could be—with respect to the rest of the phenomena of the universe, we propose a new vocabulary for astrobiological research. Lyfe is defined as any system that fulfills all four processes of the living state, namely: dissipation, autocatalysis, homeostasis, and learning. Life is defined as the instance of lyfe that we are familiar with on Earth, one that uses a specific organometallic molecular toolbox to record information about its environment and achieve dynamical order by dissipating certain planetary disequilibria. This new classification system allows the astrobiological community to more clearly define the questions that propel their research—e.g., whether they are developing a historical narrative to explain the origin of life (on Earth), or a universal narrative for the emergence of lyfe, or whether they are seeking signs of life specifically, or lyfe at large across the universe. While the concept of “life as we don’t know it” is not new, the four pillars of lyfe offer a novel perspective on the living state that is indifferent to the particular components that might produce it. MDPI 2020-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7235751/ /pubmed/32316364 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life10040042 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Bartlett, Stuart
Wong, Michael L.
Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title_full Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title_fullStr Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title_full_unstemmed Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title_short Defining Lyfe in the Universe: From Three Privileged Functions to Four Pillars
title_sort defining lyfe in the universe: from three privileged functions to four pillars
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32316364
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life10040042
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