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Nick Lane, “A Matter of Energy: Biology From First Principles” (Open Agenda, 2021)

New Books in Science, Technology, and Society

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Is There a Proton Gap That Could Drive the Growth of Pro Cells?

All cells have this continuous energy flowd and they waste a tremendous amount. So there's various ways in which it is analogous to a cell, but it's purely inorganic. And so just the possibility that these proton gradients across inorganic barriers could have led to this mechanism being taken over by cells may be an explanation for why it might work. We've built a reactor to try and test some of them. It doesn't cost mucha and it sir, it's pretty amateurish, i have to say. But nobody else has ever asked those particular questions about whether hydrogen can convert c o two into organic molecules if driven by a proton gradient across a barrier. That's

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