Related papers: Life and Water
We use numerical simulation to examine the possibility of a reversible liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water and related systems. In particular, for two atomistic models of water, we have computed free energies as functions of…
This paper is the second in a sequence of three devoted to the formulation of a theory of self-gravitating anisotropic fluids in both Newtonian gravity and general relativity. In this second paper we develop the Newtonian theory, inspired…
We investigate the dripping of liquids around solid surfaces in the regime of inertial flows, a situation commonly encountered with the so-called "teapot effect". We demonstrate that surface wettability is an unexpected key factor in…
Several groups have recently suggested that small planets orbiting very closely around white dwarf stars could be promising locations for life to arise, even after stellar death. There are still many uncertainties, however, regarding the…
The cytosol state in living cell is treated as homogeneous phase equilibrium with a special feature: the pressure of one phase is positive and the pressure of the other is negative. From this point of view the cytosol is neither solution…
Water is abundantly present in the Universe. It is the main component of interstellar ice mantles and a key ingredient for life. Water in space is mainly formed through surface reactions. Three formation routes have been proposed in the…
When an experimentalist or a biological mechanism applies an external force onto a cell chemically sticking to its substrate, a reacting 'suction' force, due to the slow penetration of the surrounding fluid between the cell and the…
Tetrahedral interactions describe the behaviour of the most abundant and technologically important materials on Earth, such as water, silicon, carbon, germanium, and countless others. Despite their differences, these materials share unique…
Many active biological particles, such as swimming microorganisms or motor-proteins, do work on their environment by going though a periodic sequence of shapes. Interactions between particles can lead to the phase-synchronization of their…
We first present open questions related to the foundations of thermodynamics and statistical physics. We then argue that in principle one can not have "closed systems", and that a universal background should exist. We propose that the…
The most important thermodynamic work performed by life today is the dissipation of the solar photon flux into heat through organic pigments in water. From this thermodynamic perspective, biological evolution is thus just the dispersal of…
An open question is whether the liquid and glassy phases of water are thermodynamically distinct or continuous. Here we address this question using molecular dynamics simulations in comparison with neutron scattering experiments to study…
The early start to life naively suggests that abiogenesis is a rapid process on Earth-like planets. However, if evolution typically takes ~4Gyr to produce intelligent life-forms like us, then the limited lifespan of Earth's biosphere…
Despite the simplicity of its molecular unit, water is a challenging system because of its uniquely rich polymorphism and predicted but yet unconfirmed features. Introducing a novel space of generalized coordinates that capture changes in…
Thin films, bubbles and membranes are central to numerous natural and engineering processes, i.e., in thin-film solar cells, coatings, biosensors, electrowetting displays, foams, and emulsions. Yet, the characterization and an adequate…
A free-floating planet is a planetary-mass object that orbits around a non-stellar massive object (e.g. a brown dwarf) or around the Galactic Center. The presence of exomoons orbiting free-floating planets has been theoretically predicted…
Binary fluid mixtures are examples of complex fluids whose microstructure and flow are strongly coupled. For pairs of simple fluids, the microstructure consists of droplets or bicontinuous demixed domains and the physics is controlled by…
Sulfur is a redox active element that may have helped mediate an electron flow that kickstarted life and which presently is an essential element for all life on Earth. Despite current uncertainties in global sulfur fluxes, modeling sulfur's…
Liquid water is one of the most studied substances, yet many of its properties are difficult to rationalize. The uniqueness of water is rooted in the dynamic network of hydrogen-bonded molecules with relaxation time constants of about one…
Current theoretical physics suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This paper points out that this view, in essence represented by usual space-time…