For the past two decades, microbial monitoring of the International Space Station (ISS) has relied on culture-dependent methods that require return to Earth for analysis.
Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is an innovative microfluidic device mimicking the structure and functionality of real tissue. OOCs typically involve cell culture with microfluidics to emulate the biological forces of different organ […]
Hear the words E. coli or salmonella and food poisoning comes to mind. Rapid detection of such bacteria is crucial in preventing outbreaks of foodborne illness. While the usual practice […]
Asgard archaea played a key role in the origin of the eukaryotic cell. While previous studies found that Asgard genomes encode diverse eukaryotic signature proteins (ESPs), representing homologs of proteins […]
Microbes that are used for health, agricultural, or other applications need to be able to withstand extreme conditions, and ideally the manufacturing processes used to make tablets for long-term storage. […]
Ice is believed to have played a crucial role in the emergence of life. One reason is that organic molecules can be excluded into the gaps between the crystal lattice […]
Editor’s note: as we send increasingly sophisticated astrobiology probes – to more places – often at much greater distances – they will need to be able to do more and […]
The central dogma at the core of molecular biology states that information flows from DNA to RNA and then to protein. Our research seeks to introduce a conceptually novel approach […]
Recently, cyanobacteria have gained attention in space exploration to support long-term crewed missions via Bioregenerative Life Support Systems. In this frame, cyanobacteria would provide biomass and profitable biomolecules through oxygenic […]
![The logic of self-replicating living “machines”. Cells reproduce through a complex process that uses DNA as a set of instructions but requires also DNA to be replicated. In von Neumann’s theory (a), a formal machine capable of copying itself would require a set of instructions to guide the construction of a new machine under some controlled states such that instructions also get replicated. In biology, one crucial component of the cellular translation machinery is the ribosome (b), made of two subunits (RibLU and RibSU) that “read” RNA strings to synthesise proteins, playing the role of the Constructor. In a molecular, embodied implementation of cell reproduction, self-organised interactions between a compartment, metabolism and information must interact. An example of a simple implementation is shown in (c) for a synthetic cell involving a compartment coupled to double-stranded polymers and a minimal metabolism (adapted from [127]). Here, a precursor pL is transformed into lipids (L) that allow membrane growth until some instability triggers division. -- preprints.org](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Fundamental-Constraints-To-The-Logic-Of-Living-Systems.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
It has been argued that the historical nature of evolution makes it a highly path-dependent process. Under this view, the outcome of evolutionary dynamics could have resulted in organisms with […]
