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LANGUAGE IS VAGUE. "I argue that it is a mistake to try to define 'life'. Such efforts reflect fundamental misunderstandings about the nature and power of definitions. I don't think that defining "life" is a very useful activity for scientists to pursue since it is not going to tell us what we really want to know, which is "what is life." A scientific theory of life (which is not the same as a definition of life) would be able to answer these questions in a satisfying way." https://lnkd.in/eNX5qhp View in LinkedIn

NO DEFINITION. "There is still no agreed-upon definition of what we actually mean by that troublesome word “life,” let alone “synthetic life,” “artificial life,” or “life from scratch...we can define “synthetic life” as self-replicating biology based on a synthetic genome, a synthetic code-script." Synthetic life is now a new branch on the tree of life (Craig Venter). https://lnkd.in/eyZU783 View in LinkedIn

"DNA, RNA, CARBOHYDRATES AND PROTEINS are widely considered the four macromolecules absolutely essential for life as we know it. Without them "life would not exist." Another definitional trap. https://lnkd.in/ekR4TrT View in LinkedIn

DNA DOGMA OF LIFE FORMS. "Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule that encodes the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and many viruses. DNA is a nucleic acid; alongside proteins and carbohydrates, nucleic acids compose the three major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life." A definitional stricture. https://lnkd.in/ePfbUir View in LinkedIn

THE GREY ZONE in biology includes prions, viruses and other creatures whose status as living things has been hotly debated. The truth is, it simply depends on what definition of life is adopted. Purely a philosophical issue, not terribly interesting in itself. But that Grey Zone is particularly interesting because it includes very unusual life forms. And these life forms have a surprising importance in thinking about Artificial Intelligence, our ultimate destination. View in LinkedIn

LEAFCUTTER ANT MONOCULTURE "whereas polyculture of several fungi could increase nutritional diversity and disease resistance of genetically variable gardens." An analog of artificial selection. https://lnkd.in/ew5j47P View in LinkedIn

CLONAL MONOCULTURE. "Leafcutter ants depend on the cultivation of symbiotic Attamyces fungi for food, which are thought to be grown by the ants in single-strain, clonal monoculture... Monoculture eliminates cultivar-cultivar competition that would select for competitive fungal traits that are detrimental to the ants." View in LinkedIn

THE GREY ZONE. The first Grey Zone characters are prions, a "quasi-species". These things are very perplexing. They are just misfolded normal cellular proteins ( chains of amino acids) that have the ability to mutate and evolve. They are infectious proteins that can induce normal proteins to become infectious by adopting their misfolded shape, and thus are self-propagating. Curious, to say the least. A serious head-job. View in LinkedIn

GENETIC SELECTION. "Rather than growing a single cultivar solely for nutrition, insect farmers appear to cultivate, and possibly "artificially select" for, integrated crop-microbe consortia. Indeed, crop domestication in the context of coevolving and codomesticated microbial consortia may explain the 50-million year old agricultural success of insect farmers." http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033817 View in LinkedIn

DNA CHAUVANISM. Stanley Miller, Carl Sagan and 18 notable other scientists debate the origin of life. A remarkable dialogue. https://lnkd.in/e6N687q View in LinkedIn