The subject is called Abiogenesis and there is a decent summary of it on it's Wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
I'm getting more interested in the topic, and I'm thinking it deserves more attention from the EU community.
If there have been discussion on previous forums let me know please.
Some theories of abiogenesis have offered lightning as an energy force but,
I have not yet found any more detailed suggestions as to how that would work.
There is this paper that heads in the right direction.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn ... m-of-life/
I am thinking that the self organizing ability of plasma may play an important role in an EU perspective on the subject.Physicists have created blobs of gaseous plasma that can grow, replicate and communicate – fulfilling most of the traditional requirements for biological cells. Without inherited material they cannot be described as alive, but the researchers believe these curious spheres may offer a radical new explanation for how life began.
AS some may know I have been promoting the self organizing of plasma
in discussion of the importance of the chromosphere in understanding the sun.
We know, or have the idea, that plasma can self organize into double layers, and they (DL) can take on different shapes.
These being parallel planes, cylinders (called flux ropes by the mainstream ), and spheres.
The spheres might be ball lightning or plasmoids :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmoid
I'm of the opinion that the spherical shapes be expanded to include cell membranes.
The scalar nature of plasma structures can go small as well as going large.
It is ironic that cell membranes are already called plasma membranes,
but that refers to blood plasma.
The connection , of course, is Irving Langmuir who named the charged gas he studied "plasma"
due to similarities he saw with blood plasma.
The cell membranes of all animal creatures, us included, all are of a double layer nature.
From a Google statement easily found elsewhere:
Also animal cells have an electric potential charge. This from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_potentialLike all other cellular membranes, the plasma membrane consists of both lipids and proteins. The fundamental structure of the membrane is the phospholipid bilayer, which forms a stable barrier between two aqueous compartments.
Membrane potential (also transmembrane potential or membrane voltage) is the difference in electric potential between the interior and the exterior of a biological cell.
I would take the small leap, from an EU perspective, and call the membrane charge potential
and the cell "plasma" membrane itself a result , direct or otherwise, from
the ability of plasma to form spherical double layers.
The self regulating nature of plasma in space deserves to be included in discussion of
the possible origins of life on earth, beyond the simple statement that "lightning has supplied the energy."
What do you think ?
Jack