It is called the iChell.
Image courtesy of NewScientist.
Sometimes movies like iRobot and the likes may just be science fiction, but at the rate of how technology is turning liquid into gold (pun), anything is possible in the near future. Details after the break.This man, Lee Cronin, intents on proving that metal-based life is possible by pushing the limits of organic chemistry and trying to discover the possible variation of inorganic cells yet possessing the same properties as an organic one. He has managed to build cell-like bubbles from metal-containing molecules and breathed life-like properties into it. Now, he aims to induce these cells into fully inorganic yet capable of self-replicating entities.
Lee Cronin claims 100% certainty that this could very well be an evolution beyond organic biology. The building blocks built by Lee composed metal atoms - and recently tungsten - linked to oxygen and phosphorus. By mixing them systematically in a solution, Lee is able to manually assemble these materials into cell-like spheres.
iChell is the term formed by "inorganic chemical cells" with metal oxides as its backbone. Lee aims to modify the structure or simply the "texture" of the metal oxide, he can give the cells membrane like properties. Lee and his team are currently trying to make photosynthesis work just like plants do. However the cells could never possibly be life-like until it contains the true DNA-like informative coding that provides the data for replication OR simply putting it another way - in biological cell, it takes in raw organic substances from its surrounding and synthesizes them into useful proteins and form appropriate compartments or new substances but for iChell it would probably be taking in metal oxide compounds - or probably in terms of metal oxidized with oxygen to form new membranes? No one really knows until Lee Cronin shows further results - although he did state that it is possible.
His theory is simple. The possible range of extraterrestrial life is not and would not only limit to organic materials found on the surface of Earth. On other planets the composition of elements are different hence living entities of inorganic elements may be possible.
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