Related papers: Life and Water
We present in this Letter a free-energy approach to the dynamics of a fluid near a nanostructured surface. The model accounts both for the static phase equilibrium in the vicinity of the surface (wetting angles, Cassie-Wenzel transition)…
Large terrestrial planets are expected to have muted topography and deep oceans, implying that most super-Earths should be entirely covered in water, so-called waterworlds. This is important because waterworlds lack a silicate weathering…
It is well known that a solid (e.g. wood or rubber) can be put under tensile stress by pulling on it. Once a critical stress is overcome, the solid breaks, leaving an empty space. Similarly, due to internal cohesion, a liquid can withstand…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
Incorporating the inherent heterogeneity of living systems into models of active nematics is essential to provide a more realistic description of biological processes such as bacterial growth, cell dynamics and tissue development.…
Unlike many physical nonequilibrium systems, in biological systems, the coupling to external energy sources is not a fixed parameter but adaptively controlled by the system itself. We do not have theoretical frameworks that allow for such…
Life is commonly described as a self-organized, far-from-equilibrium process that maintains internal order by consuming free energy and exporting entropy. This thermodynamic view underlies diverse theoretical frameworks -- from autopoiesis…
This is the companion paper of the Fluid Dynamics Video "The short life of a drop" where it is argued that the geometry of the sediment of a drop of water with particles in suspension can be correlated with the dynamics of the fluid inside…
The path toward the emergence of life in our biosphere involved several key events allowing for the persistence, reproduction and evolution of molecular systems. All these processes took place in a given environmental context and required…
A model for gas nanobubbles is proposed in which their remarkable stability is explained as due to the presence of a qualitatively different form of water covering the nanobubble surface layer which leads to a reduction of the diffusion…
Biomolecules, such as proteins and RNAs, can phase separate in the cytoplasm of cells to form biomolecular condensates. Such condensates are liquid-like droplets that can wet biological surfaces such as membranes. Many molecules that…
Life is fundamentally a scientific enigma. The interplay between chaos, entropy dynamics, and Prigogine's dissipative systems offers profound insights into the emergence, stabilization, and eventual collapse of far-from-equilibrium systems.…
The search for Life in the Universe generally assumes three basic life's needs: I) building block elements (i.e., CHNOPS), II) a solvent to life's reactions (generally, liquid water) and III) a thermodynamic disequilibrium. It is assumed…
It is sometimes asserted that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. We critically examine the assumptions inherent in this argument. Using a lottery model for biogenesis in the Universe, we…
The liquid-gas phase transition in finite nuclei is studied in a heated liquid-drop model where the drop is assumed to be in thermodynamic equilibrium with the vapour emanated from it. Changing pressure along the liquid-gas coexistence line…
The origins of life stands among the great open scientific questions of our time. While a number of proposals exist for possible starting points in the pathway from non-living to living matter, these have so far not achieved states of…
Surface liquid water is essential for standard planetary habitability. Calculations of atmospheric circulation on tidally locked planets around M stars suggest that this peculiar orbital configuration lends itself to the trapping of large…
In this paper, based on a theoretical model [1], it has been shown experimentally that the initial stage of development of a nanosecond breakdown in liquids is associated with the appearance of discontinuities in the liquid (cavitation)…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization, with evidence for it being reported in numerous different systems. However, there is a growing concern regarding the lack of…
The thermodynamic (TD) properties of biological membranes play a central role for living systems. It has been suggested, for instance, that nonlinear pulses such as action potentials (APs) can only exist if the membrane state is in vicinity…