Information Transmission Via Molecular Communication In Astrobiological Environments

The ubiquity of information transmission via molecular communication between cells is comprehensively documented on Earth; this phenomenon might even have played a vital role in the origin(s) and early evolution of life.

Motivated by these considerations, a simple model for molecular communication entailing the diffusion of signaling molecules from transmitter to receiver is elucidated. The channel capacity C (maximal rate of information transmission) and an optimistic heuristic estimate of the actual information transmission rate I are derived for this communication system; the two quantities, especially the latter, are demonstrated to be broadly consistent with laboratory experiments and more sophisticated theoretical models.

The channel capacity exhibits a potentially weak dependence on environmental parameters, whereas the actual information transmission rate may scale with the intercellular distance d as I ∝ d −4 and could vary substantially across settings. These two variables are roughly calculated for diverse astrobiological environments, ranging from Earth’s upper oceans (C ∼ 3.1×103 bits/s; I ∼ 4.7 × 10−2 bits/s) and deep sea hydrothermal vents (C ∼ 4.2 × 103 bits/s; I ∼ 1.2 × 10−1 bits/s) to the hydrocarbon lakes and seas of Titan (C ∼ 3.8×103 bits/s; I ∼ 2.6×10−1 bits/s).

Manasvi Lingam

Comments: Accepted for publication in Astrobiology; 57 pages; 1 figure; 1 table
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph); Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn); Molecular Networks (q-bio.MN); Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
Cite as: arXiv:2309.01924 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2309.01924v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Manasvi Lingam
[v1] Tue, 5 Sep 2023 03:23:23 UTC (119 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01924
Astrobiology,