
First Support for a Physics Theory of Life - CrocodileStreet
https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-support-for-a-physics-theory-of-life-20170726/
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sctb
Previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14858250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14858250)

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tzs
OT: I'm not a front end guy, so maybe this is a dumb question, but why do so
many sites with some kind of floating header mess up page at a time scrolling?

By "floating header" I mean that thing at the top on the story site that has
the story title, the link to comments, a read later link, and a share link,
that stays in a fixed position in the window as you scroll the story.

When you scroll the site (Firefox, Chrome, Safari) by hitting the space bar,
it scrolls an amount appropriate for what would be visible if the floating
header were not there. What this means is that the first line or two that are
invisible before the scroll, because they are below the bottom of the window,
end up at the top of the window, under the floating header.

Is there no way in CSS or something to set the size of the viewport that the
scrolled content is shown in, so that the browser can scroll the appropriate
amount? Or do you have to take over scrolling yourself in JavaScript to make
that work, which then tends to result in scrolling that does not quite match
native scrolling and so annoys people?

If the latter, couldn't you leave scrolling alone when done via the mouse
wheel or clicking in the scroll bar, but intercept keyboard events and handle
space processing yourself, so that you ONLY take over that form of scrolling?
That would be a big improvement over the current situation.

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greeneggs
This drives me mad, too. The NY Times does space-bar scrolling right. Random
example:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/immigration-
visa-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/immigration-
visa-h1b-trump-.html)

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amelius
I wonder why all of life seems to come from one origin.

For example, the chirality of basic biological molecules all seem the same
across all life forms. Mathematically and chemically speaking, a different
chirality would be exactly as plausible for life.

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reubenswartz
> I wonder why all of life seems to come from one origin.

The most likely explanation is that it does come from a single origin. Either
it only started once, or the particular lineage that led to all the life we
see now outcompeted other, less efficient forms of primitive life.

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amelius
Imho, the first explanation is not plausible, because life started really
early after Earth was formed (increasing the plausibility that life can spark
at any moment).

The second explanation is not plausible because at least we would have found
some evidence, i.e., samples of dead and outcompeted life forms.

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matt4077
Those initial life forms would probably take the form of something like
prions, or viruses: small protein assemblies, with a tendency to replicate.
They would, almost by definition, have no defences against the armada of
today's microbiology roaming every crevice. They would be devoured within
seconds of accidentally forming.

Of those that formed billions of years ago, no trace would remain, or, if it
did, it would be indistinguishable to us from any non-living molecule that
once swam in the primordial soup.

~~~
amelius
We could test that assumption by synthesizing biological molecules with a
different chirality, and dumping them into a soup of "normal" life, and see
how much of it remains.

~~~
mysterypie
That's a really good experiment to try. I wonder why no one has tried it.

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corradio
Good read concerning this topic: Into the Cool
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52737.Into_the_Cool](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52737.Into_the_Cool))

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ev01ve
How does this relate to the 'constructal law'? For reference:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructal_law)

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Invictus0
I'm not sure I can get behind his premise here. England suggests that life is
a result of molecules forming combinations that burn greater amounts of energy
(paraphrasing), but it seems to me that life burns _less_ energy over a
sustained period of time. This is why we live for 80 years instead of
spontaneously combusting.

~~~
ci5er
Compared to a rock on the moon?

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PeachPlum
It could also be the case human's use of fire and now fossil fuels are the
universe's way of achieving a maximum energy releasing mechanism

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auggierose
A simple set of rules can lead to exceptional structure ... Isn't that what
everyone including Stephen Wolfram already knows?

