{"id":174701,"date":"2023-10-25T10:22:23","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T15:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/physics-has-long-failed-to-explain-life-but-were-testing-a-groundbreaking-new-theory-in-the-lab"},"modified":"2023-10-25T10:22:23","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T15:22:23","slug":"physics-has-long-failed-to-explain-life-but-were-testing-a-groundbreaking-new-theory-in-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/physics-has-long-failed-to-explain-life-but-were-testing-a-groundbreaking-new-theory-in-the-lab","title":{"rendered":"Physics has long failed to explain life \u2014 but we\u2019re testing a groundbreaking new theory in the lab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/physics-has-long-failed-to-explain-life-but-were-testing-a-groundbreaking-new-theory-in-the-lab2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Modern physics can explain everything from the spin of the tiniest particle to the behaviour of entire galaxy clusters. But it <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/great-mysteries-of-physics-5-will-we-ever-have-a-fundamental-theory-of-life-and-consciousness-203127\">can\u2019t explain life<\/a>. There\u2019s simply no formula to explain the difference between a living lump of matter and a dead one. Life seems to just mysteriously \u201cemerge\u201d from non-living parts, such as elementary particles.<\/p>\n<p>Assembly theory is a bold new approach to explaining life on a fundamental scale, with its framework <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-023-06600-9\">recently published in Nature<\/a>. It assumes that complexity and information (such as DNA) are at the heart of it. The theory provides a a way to understand how these concepts emerge in chemical systems.<\/p>\n<p>Emergence is a word physicists use to explain something that is bigger than the sum of its parts \u2013 such as how water can feel wet when individual water molecules don\u2019t. Wetness is an emergent property.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Modern physics can explain everything from the spin of the tiniest particle to the behaviour of entire galaxy clusters. But it can\u2019t explain life. There\u2019s simply no formula to explain the difference between a living lump of matter and a dead one. Life seems to just mysteriously \u201cemerge\u201d from non-living parts, such as elementary particles. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}