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TENDENCY TO DISORDER. "Information theory showed that entropy and information are inversely related such that an increase in information is equivalent to a decrease in entropy. Thus, the agents of information (in our case, natural products) are employed by nature to overcome the natural tendency toward disorder, and, fueled by the energy from the sun, or other less common sources of energy here on earth, these small molecules have become indispensable for life on this planet." https://lnkd.in/dEpJBda View in LinkedIn

"THE EMBRYONICS (embryonic electronics) project is a joint collaboration between the Logic Systems Laboratory and the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique SA. The ultimate objective is the construction of large-scale integrated circuits, exhibiting properties such as self-repair (healing), self-replication, and evolution, found up until now only in living beings." https://lnkd.in/dn83zJW View in LinkedIn

"STRUCTURES that self-organize (crystals, double helical DNA, etc) do so because of compensating energy factors (e.g. favorable intramolecular attractions such as hydrogen bonding); whereas, systems that appear to "spontaneously" self organize (e.g. life) may well involve self-ordering components but also require an external source of energy to compensate for unfavorable entropy." https://lnkd.in/dEpJBda View in LinkedIn

CONTINUATION. "Reggia et al., presented several small self-replicating loops, essentially based on Langton's work." https://lnkd.in/dn83zJW View in LinkedIn

FREE ENERGY. "All processes are driven by changes in free energy, which in turn is made up of two parts, enthalpy and entropy. Since all systems try to go to their highest states of randomness (increase in entropy), naturally occurring ordered states must arise through enthalpic compensation." https://lnkd.in/dEpJBda View in LinkedIn

SELF-COPYING. "We demonstrate that, if an arbitrary seed pattern is put in a soup of separate individual particles, the pattern will replicate by assembling the individual particles into copies of itself. We also show that, given sufficient time, a soup of separate individual particles will eventually spontaneously form self-replicating patterns." https://lnkd.in/dM2XhS8 View in LinkedIn

PARTICLES IN VIRTUAL LIQUID. "Their internal states are governed by finite state machines, but their external relationships are governed by a simulated physics that includes Brownian motion, viscosity, and springlike attractive and repulsive forces. The particles can be assembled into patterns that can encode arbitrary strings of bits." (JohnnyVon). https://lnkd.in/dM2XhS8 View in LinkedIn

"JOHNNYVON is an implementation of self-replicating machines in continuous two-dimensional space. Two types of particles drift about in a virtual liquid. The particles are automata with discrete internal states but continuous external relationships." (JohnnyVon after Von Neumann). https://lnkd.in/dM2XhS8 View in LinkedIn

LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING. "Genomics entrepreneur Craig Venter has created a synthetic cell that contains the smallest genome of any known, independent organism. Functioning with 473 genes, the cell is a milestone in his team’s 20-year quest to reduce life to its bare essentials and, by extension, to design life from scratch." https://lnkd.in/eFyYj-B View in LinkedIn

HITCHHIKER'S ANSWER. "While Douglas Adams’ answer to the ultimate question of life is 42; the real answer might be closer to 473 – the minimum number of genes required to sustain life under ideal environmental conditions. The smallest known mycoplasma genome (Mycoplasma genitalium; containing 525 genes) provided the most obvious starting point from which to determine the minimal genome." https://lnkd.in/dSXRRHt View in LinkedIn