Abstract
Recent empirical work has characterized motile oil droplets—small, self-propelled oil droplets whose active surface chemistry moves them through their aqueous environment. Previous work has evaluated in detail the fluid dynamics underlying the motility of these droplets. This paper introduces a new computational model that is used to evaluate the behaviour of these droplets as a form of viability-based adaptive self-preservation, whereby (i) the mechanism of motility causes motion towards the conditions beneficial to that mechanism’s persistence; and (ii) the behaviour automatically adapts to compensate when the motility mechanism’s ideal operating conditions change. The model simulates a motile oil droplet as a disc that moves through a two-dimensional spatial environment containing diffusing chemicals. The concentration of reactants on its surface change by way of chemical reactions, diffusion, Marangoni flow (the equilibriation of surface tension) and exchange with the droplet’s local environment. Droplet motility is a by-product of Marangoni flow, similar to the motion-producing mechanism observed in the lab. We use the model to examine how the droplet’s behaviour changes when its ideal operating conditions vary.
Highlights
How early in the history of life might we expect to find a system capable of adaptive self-preservation? What was the first of our ancestors to move, or in some other way regulate how it interacted with its environment to satisfy its own needs? Behaviour is typically associated with sophisticated sensors and motors that are the result of a long period of evolution
If present at the earliest stages of life’s evolution, viability-based behaviour could have played an important role, using its benefits to facilitate life’s emergence and early development, bringing us back to the questions that we opened with: How early in the history of life might we expect to find a system capable of adaptive self-preservation? What was the first of our ancestors to move, or in some other way regulate the way that it interacted with its environment in response to its own needs? Were there pre-biotic dissipative structures that were already capable of changing their behaviour in response to their own viability? For the remainder of this paper, we focus on just one such system: motile oil droplets
We investigate how these systems are capable of changing their behaviour in a viability-based response to their own existential needs
Summary
How early in the history of life might we expect to find a system capable of adaptive self-preservation? What was the first of our ancestors to move, or in some other way regulate how it interacted with its environment to satisfy its own needs? Behaviour is typically associated with sophisticated sensors and motors that are the result of a long period of evolution. To elaborate: the first stages of life are seen as active only in their ability to grow or copy themselves To this picture, we might add the possibility that the earliest forms of ( pre-)life were already capable of basic selfpreserving behaviours and that these behaviours might have facilitated the development of increasingly sophisticated forms of life [5]. We might add the possibility that the earliest forms of ( pre-)life were already capable of basic selfpreserving behaviours and that these behaviours might have facilitated the development of increasingly sophisticated forms of life [5] This notion of simple abiological systems being capable of adaptive self-preservation is unusual and counterintuitive. The purpose of this paper is to explain and investigate these ideas; to consider how abiological systems might be considered to have a degree of ‘health’ or ‘viability’ and how they might be able to respond in an adaptive way to regulate their environment in a way that responds to their health
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
