Related papers: Life and Water
As evident from the nearby examples of Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1, Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars are common. Here, we focus on such planetary systems and argue that their (oceanic) tides could be more…
The hydrogen isotopic (D/H) ratio reflects the global cycling and evolution of water on Earth as it fractionates through planetary processes. We model the water cycle taking seafloor hydrothermal alteration, chemical alteration of…
We study the assembly of colloids in a two phase water-water system that provides an environment that can sustain bacteria, providing a new structure with rich potential to confine and structure living colloids. The water-water system,…
The sustenance of life depends on the high degree of organization that prevails through different levels of living organisms, from subcellular structures such as biomolecular complexes and organelles to tissues and organs. The physical…
In this paper the motion of two-phase, incompressible, viscous fluids with surface tension is investigated. Three cases are considered: (1) the case of heat-conducting fluids, (2) the case of isothermal fluids, and (3) the case of Stokes…
A macroscopic quantum state that is characterized by an energy gap in the electronic spectrum and occurs in organic structural components of the cell is hypothesized to provide a basis for the phenomenon of life. The width of the band gap…
Water vapor is not only Earth's dominant greenhouse gas. Through the release of latent heat when it condenses, it also plays an active role in dynamic processes that shape the global circulation of the atmosphere and thus climate. Here we…
Twenty years ago Poole et al. (Nature 360, 324, 1992) suggested that the anomalous properties of supercooled water may be caused by a critical point that terminates a line of liquid-liquid separation of lower-density and higher-density…
Although realizing wetting transitions of droplets spontaneously on solid rough surfaces is quite challenging, it is becoming a key research topic in many practical applications which require highly efficient removal of liquid. We report…
I propose that the need for sleep and the occurrence of dreams are intimately linked to the physical processes underlying the continuing replacement of cells and renewal of biomolecules during the lives of higher organisms. Since one major…
Understanding how biological homochirality emerged remains a challenge for the researchers interested in the origin of life. During the last decades, stable non-racemic steady states of nonequilibrium chemical systems have been discussed as…
Water nanoclusters ejected into interstellar space from abundant amorphous ice-coated cosmic dust offer a hypothetical scenario connecting major mysteries of our universe: dark matter, dark energy, cosmology, astrobiology, and the RNA…
Life occurs in concentrated `Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology…
Classical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics describe systems in which nothing interacts with nothing. Even the highly refined theory of simple fluids does not deal very well with electrical interactions, boundary conditions, or…
Clarifying the factors that control the contact angle of a liquid on a solid substrate is a long-standing scientific problem pertinent across physics, chemistry and materials science. Progress has been hampered by the lack of a…
In a multiverse context, determining the probability of being in our particular universe depends on estimating its overall habitability compared to other universes with different values of the fundamental constants. One of the most…
The concept of evolutionary development of structures constituted a \emph{real} revolution in biology: it was possible to understand how the very complex structures of life can arise in an out-of-equilibrium system. The investigation of…
Studying water droplets is a rich lesson in fields of fluid dynamics, nonlinear systems, and differential equations. Understanding various physical aspects of raindrops can help us in understanding drop dynamics, rainfall density…
Earth is unusual in bearing life, and in having a large moon. A number of authors have suggested a possible connection between the two, e.g. through lunar stabilisation of the earth's obliquity, or through the effects of the oceanic tides.…
Are solids intrinsically different from liquids? Must a finite stress be applied in order to induce flow? Or, instead, do all solids only look rigid on some finite timescales and eventually flow if an infinitesimal shear stress is applied?…