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ANALYSIS. “We hence defined an 8-dimensional “lifeness space” on the basis of these property clusters and used semantic proximity as a metric for assessing the relative positioning of the target entities along these dimensions. These findings corroborate the intuition that different entities perform differently along each lifeness dimension.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

“RESULTS show eight major clusters of properties: two that relate to metabolism, one to structure, one to genetics, another to evolvability, and three others to environment-interactions broadly construed. By measuring the semantic proximity of the words representing the target entities to the set of words associated with each one of the property clusters, we found that this semantic proximity varied.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

Triplets. View in LinkedIn

STRANGE UNIVERSE. “Phenomena of the physical world, as immediately given to us, appear in inexhaustible structures and formations of matter.” https://lnkd.in/dQ9VgzAr View in LinkedIn

LIFE ON A SPECTRUM. “If it turns out that lifeness is gradual, how do the different more-or-less alive entities fare relative to one another?” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

THE OUTLIERS. “The menagerie of microbiology also includes artificially simplified versions of natural organisms, specific RNA viral particles or viroids, viral agents named satellites, viruses of viruses that go by the name of virophages, autonomous DNA strands or plasmids, prions, and still others.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

OUTLIERS. These “hard-to-classify entities” include smart macromolecules, complex chemical networks, spontaneous crystals, large viruses, streamlined bacteria. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

IGNORING THE DETAILS. “Yet, numerous hard-to-classify entities are now known that challenge our very intuitions about life and non-life.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

RANKING LIFE. “Note that “viruses” rank quite high in terms of genetics (dimension H), and, interestingly, in terms of cellular/structural features (dimension C), which may relate to their capsids and other structures. “Archaea” have a fairly similar pattern to “bacteria”, but rank lower overall along most themes, despite intuitions that they would be as alive as bacteria.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn

DEGREES OF LIFE. “In this sense, viruses can be said to be more alive than bacteria along those functional dimensions. But “viruses” also rank lower than “bacteria” on all other dimensions, most notably on metabolism and proteins/catalysis (dimensions A and B) and environment interactions (dimension D), which is in line with the general characterization of viruses as lacking metabolism and being incapable of making a living by themselves.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-02356-w View in LinkedIn