Going through the emails with a cup of coffee I spotted this from one of the New Scientist blogs
Life Defined
What is life? According to Sohan Jheeta, an astrobiologist from the Open University:-
"Life is a thermodynamically open chemical system with a semi-permeable boundary. It contains an information-based complex system with emergent properties, part of which drives a metabolism based on a proton gradient. The said gradient generates the necessary potential difference across the semi-permeable boundary. The information is heritable and coded in such a way as to allow variation and thus evolution."On occasions, I roar about the house to refrains of:-
Life! couldn't you just live without it?Apparently not! Got to keep that proton gradient based metabolism rollin' the potential across the old semi-permeable.
Post birthday best wishes to all our readers.
