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Nicolle Rager Fuller / NSF
An artist's conception shows an RNA molecule, which may have served as an early form of life on Earth.
The debate over the definition of life is getting messier and messier, but one of the pioneers on the biochemical frontier is suggesting a method to tell whether scientists are actually looking at a new form of life: Follow the bits of information that are contained in the chemistry.
"How many heritable 'bits' of information are involved, and where did they come from?" Scripps Research Institute biologist Gerald Joyce asks in an essay published today by the journal PLoS Biology. "A genetic system that contains more bits than the number that were required to initiate its operation might reasonably be considered a new form of life."
By that definition, we're not yet close to identifying alien life, in the lab or in the cosmos, Joyce told me today. "The fact is, there is only one known form of life, and we're part of it. Someday, maybe there'll be something that's off the grid, but everything we know is part of the tree of life."
Joyce says that verdict applies to microbes with artificially constructed DNA, such as the bacteria that were built in a lab two years ago, as well as to the arsenic-tolerant bacteria that were at one time touted as a form of alien life. He worries that all these claims about creating or finding alien life could backfire.
"We've had enough of these false alarms that I'm getting a little nervous that the public is going to perceive it as 'crying wolf,'" he said. "There have been enough examples that we need to just cool it a little."
Joyce applies the same rule of thumb to his own research, which focuses on RNA enzymes that can be combined to create a synthetic genome. In the essay, he notes that the RNA enzymes can "evolve" into new forms, but contain only 24 bits of their own heritable information in the form of chemical base pairs. The molecules need another 60 bits of information that are provided at the outset and are not subject to mutation and selection.
"Thus, of the 84 total bits required for the system to replicate and evolve, only about one-fourth can be counted as part of the system's molecular memory," he writes. "The synthetic genetic system is not a new life form because it operates mostly on borrowed bits."
Creating or remaking life in the lab
Is it even possible to come up with a life form from scratch? That's one of the key reasons for having a working definition, so that scientists know alien life when they see it ... or make it. The synthetic bacteria created by J. Craig Venter and his colleagues wouldn't qualify because those microbes are merely using a computerized genetic code that was tweaked from nature. "Craig Venter knows that he didn't make a new life form. He remade Mycoplasma," Joyce said.
But if RNA enzymes — or another class of synthetic molecules known as xenonucleic acid polymers or XNA — could be developed into stand-alone genetic systems, with more than half of the information passed along through an alternate chemistry, that just might lead to a truly new form of life.
"That's definitely knocking on the door ... What you'd need is an XNA molecule that has the function of copying XNA parent molecules to produce XNA progeny with pretty good fidelity," Joyce said. Right now, the XNA bits have to be swapped into DNA for amplification, he noted.
Life on other worlds
Joyce said alien life could be created in the lab, or its fingerprints could be detected far from our solar system. "About a decade from now, we're going to start seeing the atmospheric composition of extrasolar planets," he said. If future telescopes pick up the signs of unusual chemistry — say, an unexpected excess of ozone — that could point to potential life processes. But to clinch the case, scientists would need to learn enough about the mechanism behind the chemistry, and how that chemistry preserves "molecular memory" from one generation to the next.
"To me, in a slogan, biology is chemistry plus history," Joyce said. "There's a special class of chemistry that has memory, that has history built in. It's a kind of chemistry that learns from experience."
Confirming the existence of biological-style chemistry on Mars, or in some other environment in our own solar system, presents a special case. "Now we're really in the game," Joyce said. "We're talking about 'spit-carrying molecules.' Maybe we can get little snippets of information and start stitching that together, and have enough to say, 'OK, is it on the tree of life or not?' If the sequence is just off the tree, was it a deep branch, or did it become its own thing?"
Joyce said the alien-life debate could well be reignited by developments right here on Earth, such as the analysis of samples brought up from Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake hidden beneath a miles-thick layer of Antarctic ice. "I won't be surprised, when the samples come up from James Cameron's deep dive to the Mariana Trench, that someone starts thinking that there's something weird down there," he said in a PLoS Biology podcast. "Maybe it's an alternative life form."
One thing's for sure: Until another truly alien form of life is created or discovered, it's impossible to make a meaningful estimate of how common life might be in the universe, or arrive at the answer to one of life's ultimate questions: Are we alone?
"I think humans are lonely, and long for another form of life in the universe, preferably one that is intelligent and benevolent," Joyce said in a PLoS news release. "But wishing upon a star does not make it so. We must either discover alternative life or construct it in the laboratory. Someday it may be discovered by a Columbus who travels to a distant world or, more likely in my opinion, invented by a Geppetto who toils at the workbench."
More about life, the universe and everything:
- Can scientists define 'life' ... using just three words?
- What should society do about synthetic life?
- Gallery: Six signs that aliens might actually exist
- What exactly is life?
In the PLoS Biology podcast, Joyce discusses the search for new life forms and synthetic biology. Joyce's work was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Alright , I'll post my favorite theory on the origin of RNA or DNA ....
I like the one that believes that molecules were smashed and held together for long periods of time by frozen water ....
Here's a segment of that assumption ....
From "World Science" ....
Did life begin in ice?
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050809_icefrm.htm
Various conditions can prevent RNA molecules’ breakdown, the researchers argue. These include various types of water solutions, and freezing. But freezing may have been the one that most likely occurred on the early Earth, they argued.
Freezing usually slows down chemical reactions, which is why cold places are generally considered hostile to life. But freezing actually speeds up some of RNA’s key activities, Landweber and colleagues argue.
This is because ice contains hard, tiny compartments that hold the molecules in one place, where they can react together. Some of these reactions result in the creation of bigger RNA molecules.
In liquid water, by contrast, the molecules don’t come close enough together often enough to react as much. Thus they tend to fall apart faster than they can react to create bigger products.
In essence, the small compartments in ice play the role that cells today play in bringing the molecules together to react, Landweber and her colleagues argue. Dehydrated substances—a sort of primordial sludge, for instance—could also have provided a function similar to ice, they added, but ice works better.
What is (best in) life?
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women!"
If we define life then we will inevitably get it wrong. Take the definition of a planet for example. Part of the definition for a planet involves "clearing out it's own orbit". So, at what point is an orbit clear? A "dwarf planet" like Ceres could never clear out it's orbit thanks to the balance of gravity that keeps the asteroid belt in place (or it is happening VERY slowly).
Anyway, life is what it is. That is not a scientific definition by any stretch of the imagination, but it serves to drive home the broad inclusion of the vast variety of living things. We are stardust.
Yeah. Get Ziggy with it.
... we are golden...
t.v. show iam legend ....dont mess with life
... In philosophical terms, having a purpose to existence.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/purpose+of+life
I don't agree. According to the scientist quoted, something need a certain number of "bits" in order to "initiate its operation". I don't think that having "more bits than the number that were required" translates to "having a purpose to existence".
From a philosophical standpoint a thing's purpose does not depend on it having more "bits". The purpose of a thing's existence only depends on its existence. It sounds paradoxically cyclical but I don't think it is. If it doesn't exist it can not have a purpose. Likewise, if it's genetic system has more stuff in it than necessary plays no role in it's purpose because it does not affect it's existence. We may not know why we are here, but if we are here then we can assume that we have a purpose. Whether that purpose is to exist and simply breathe in and out or if it's some higher purpose like saving the whales is really beside the point. If you exist then you have a purpose.
From my new book: "It's All About Time" Lulu.com press, 2012
HOW LIFE GOT TO EARTH
“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about
life: it goes on.” Robert Frost
The elements[1]
to sustain life are continuing to be created in the evolution of the
stars. It all begins with the simplest
and oldest element, hydrogen, which is the fuel of stars. From this basic element, every other element
that forms our body is manufactured as “star stuff”. So the question begs: “Was the Universe
designed to perpetuate life based upon the design criteria recorded in the DNA
helix?”
One could begin to wonder if the complex DNA helix
was in fact “made” within the lifetime of the Universe. We’ll never know. However, what appears real, besides the
complex magnitude of life on this oasis called Earth, are the “conveyors of
life”, comets, which exist throughout the realm of the visible Universe. Comets are made of water ice and most agree
that a search for life is a search for water.
As a matter of fact, as you will learn from future chapters that comets
provided the ingredients to support the environmental conditions that made life
on earth possible!
Will we eventually accept the fact that we are not
alone? Earth’s population of life may
be the only atypical copies in the Universe but there are likely forms of life
in other worlds that have evolved by adapting to the environments of their
“planet”.
The microbes that NASA found in California’s Mono
Lake (2010) appear to have evolved by substituting arsenic for phosphorous as a
nutrient to survive. This is one more
clue that life is very resilient. The
more knowledge we gain about the “particles of life” the more we are led to
conclude that the Universe was designed to accommodate and sustain life. This chapter presents some of these
arguments.
We have said that the laws of physics are obviously
friendly to life because we exist! From
the evolution of stars come the chemical elements that make up the atoms which
have come alive. Every element, besides
hydrogen, that forms our bodies was created within the life cycle of a
star. This part we know. The element hydrogen, with a trace of helium
has existed since the beginning of time.
Currently hydrogen and traces of helium make up 99.9% of all visible
matter so the work of stars throughout their lives have produced little when
compared to the whole, but just enough for our existence.
The prime mover for building the physical Universe is
energy. When organisms (life) came along the flow of information, not energy,
became the prime mover. A unit of life
exists because “communication” of molecular information allows for survival in
“entropy”[2]
Universe. Once life existed Werner
Loewenstein says: “Given its abundance, it is not surprising that evolution
chose light as an energy source to drive living systems.” Even the writers of the Bible got it right
when they wrote, before critters came along: “And then there was light.”
A one cell creature, the Amoeba[3],
has the capacity to process information that would fill more than 300,000 pages
of a book. A human’s body cells contain, collectively, enough information to
fill a library greater than any that has ever existed.
Both living and non-living matter are made of the
same kind of atoms, yet the living can perform coordinated functions (e.g. the
cells in your heart muscles are the same type cells in your leg muscles yet the
heart cells all have the same rhythmical beat) where the non-living cannot. Living cells do what non-living system cannot
do, and that is extract information from their surroundings.
When a living creature is formed the building
structure, cells, are given different job assignments. The aggregate chores are designed to make the
whole body function. That is to do those
things that give it the best chance to survive in its environment long enough
to replicate the DNA matrix, assuring continuance of the specie. This is done by passing on information to and
from each cell by a control center (for a human the communicator is the mind
which resides in the cells of the brain).
Entropy which in living entities is called aging, the flow of time, will
win out after the next generation is produced.
The process that results in “dust to dust” when we die is called
entropy. Thus the disorder that our
living body cells go through to become a “pile” of atoms is entropy.
The time flow on Earth has proven to be an ideal
environment for complex life to evolve.
“From Everest’s peak to the floor of the Mariana Trench, creatures of
one kind or another inhabit virtually every square inch of the planetary
surface”.[4] Earth’s incubator has allowed
microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses[5],
to become a diversity of life that is certainly “Earth like”. Life that evolved on Earth can only survive
elsewhere in an Earth like environment.
However, microbes have proven that they can survive in space and there
is some circumstantial evidence that the “seeds” of life planted on Earth did
arrive from space.
A bacterium
called “Deinococcus radiodarans” can live through radiation so intense the
glass of a Pyrex beaker, in which they reside, will cook to a discolored
fragile condition. These critters can
with stand radiation about 1,000 times that which will kill Homo sapiens. A small number will survive three (3) million
rads[6]. 1,000 rads will kill a human in one to two
weeks. These guys are ‘super bugs’ and
certainly are candidates for space travel.
When the first
astronauts landed on the moon in 1969 they retrieved a piece of an unmanned
moon vehicle of the “Surveyor” series that had been on the moon surface for
seven plus years. (The unmanned
“Surveyor” instruments were sent to the moon to recon landing sites for the
Apollo program.) Bacteria found on the
retrieved part, exposed to the moon’s environment, were still alive.
There was an
experiment on board the space station that exposed microbes to space. The shuttle Challenger’s crew was supposed to
retrieve this experiment and return it to researchers on Earth. Challenger exploded on lift off and the
microbe experiment remained exposed to a space environment for three plus
years. Examination of the experiment
found the bacteria had created a cocoon around some members of their colony. The bacteria inside the cocoon survived.
There is evidence
that microbes can remain dormant indefinitely.
About thirty million years ago a bee was killed by resin that over time
turned into amber which served as its tomb until now. Within the bee’s belly a microbiologist, Raul
Cano, found more than two thousand species of bacteria and yeast that had
survived those millions of years of entombment[7]. When environmental conditions in a pristine
laboratory reached life support levels, these critters came alive!
Almost every
global influenza outbreak involves microbes that are unique to that particular
outbreak. The influenza pandemic of
1918-19 killed from 20 to 30 million people from every inhabited continent. Physicians were helpless as “The origin of
this influenza variant is not precisely known”.
The accepted thought was that the virus originated in China where a rare
genetic shift took place to change the virus. (Note: In 1918 China was
essentially a closed society to the rest of the world thus the perfect escape
goat for this theory.) This theory did not explain the facts that people
worldwide were infected nearly simultaneously, not allowing time needed for
human carriers to infect all the continents.
Immediately after
Halley’s Comet visited the Solar System in April 1910 Earth’s orbit took the
planet directly through the comet’s plume.
Water[8]
latent dust and other debris entered Earth’s upper atmosphere. Some researchers believe the influenza virus
that caused the 1918 outbreak arrived via Halley’s Comet. I believe that eventually the seeds of life
will probably be found in the dust debris left by a passing comet, particularly
the comets that originate in the Jupiter region. These comets are called “snowballs” and have
ice/water with the same molecular structure as the water molecule on
Earth. Comets from the Oort cloud,
located in the outer reaches of the Solar System, have a different water
molecule than that found on Earth. These comets are called “ice bergs”. Whether they support life or not has not been
theorized according to my research efforts to date.
The aforementioned evidence drives the search for
life on Mars and elsewhere in space. The
Viking Landers of the 1970s were designed to search for life on the surface of
Mars. Four experiments were conducted involving
collection of soil, applying nutrients and analyzing the waste that could have
been generated by microbes. The first
experiment used a radiation marker which gave a positive indication that
something alive had processed the soil sample.
Two experiments gave unexpected and puzzling results, while the fourth
experiment gave a negative result. Later,
these same four experiments were conducted on Earth using twin Viking
instruments that ran the same experiments analyzing the waste from soil
enriched with microbes, and all the devices failed to detect the life contained
in those samples.
NASA has a meteorite that is definitely from Mars
that contains a fossil that was left by a microbe. The meteorite was examined several years ago
without a conclusion. However, since the
exam new instrumentation has been developed and the sample is being
revaluated. Conclusions are pending.
There are many clues that lead to the conclusion that
the Universe is populated throughout with life in the form of
microorganisms. The age of Earth almost
certainly excludes time for life to originate.
It is a logical assumption that the seeds of life originated elsewhere at
the microcosm level. “Our DNA is simply
too paltry to spell out the wiring diagram for the human brain[9]”.
It’s conceivable that Nature’s purpose for a
collection of atoms coming “alive” is to replicate the double helical structure
we call DNA. These two chains are wound
round each other and linked together by hydrogen (the oldest and most abundant
element) bonds between specific complimentary bases to form a spiral
ladder-shaped molecule. The molecule can encode vast amounts of data, save it,
and pass it on through countless generations nearly error free. Because it operates at the quantum level only
a particular arrangement of atoms is possible[10].
All known life on earth, from bacteria to trees,
including humans, are all descendants from a single ancestor and share the same
kind of genetic material, i.e., DNA.
Living cells use DNA to store genetic information and use the same code
for turning this information into proteins and living organisms.
For a collection of atoms to perform the chores of
life it would appear to take eons of time to synchronize. These crude groups of microbes existed in a
slower time zone, thus in the beginning of microcosmic life there was no need
for replication or subsistence. It was
not until the “seeds of life” arrived on Earth that the need for renewal became
parameters of necessity for continued existence. The primary consequences of
the computational nature of the Universe are that it generates complex systems,
such as life[11]”. Consciousness may be an emergent phenomenon
that does not exist at a lower level of complexity than mammals have evolved on
Earth.
Everything that is a ‘living’ entity depends upon the
flow of information between the living cells.
The time clock within each creature appears to allow this communication
to take place, thus the entity that defines us as being alive. The instance a living creature dies every
cell that defined that creature ceases to function/live.
What some define as a “normal” human being may simply
be an entity with an internal clock that’s in sync with its surroundings! The life span of any earthy creature, that is
to say the aging process, is defined by time and its ability to replicate.
Our concepts of life, from birth to death, are
constrained by having only observed a single instance of evolutionary
life. Our brains have not evolved to the
point where original thought can occur.
The brain is preprogrammed (learning) and relies upon techniques of synergy
to accumulate knowledge. To be creative
or an inventor are misnomers since we simply discover Nature’s secrets. The current state-of-art in science cannot
define why, what or how ‘life’ exists.
So the two questions that are most important to
scientists, “How did life begin?” and “What is consciousness?” go unanswered
partly because of evidence and mostly because of the fabric of our
philosophical upbringing. Philosophy
developed by the Greeks[12]
in the 4th century B.C. suggested that the body had a “soul” and
that soul was immortal. Our descendants
will continue the quest for scientific knowledge about the basic nature of
life’s origins.
There appears to be an infinite number of unknowns
that exist in the quantum domain that make up the ingredients that produce the
whole of life. Scientists will never
develop the wherewithal to discover the preponderance of factors of the quantum
enigma that constitute life because the observer is part of that world. We are stuck in the grasp of an evolutionary
process that continues to hone our senses for the purpose of survival and
propagation, not quantum observations.
Our understanding of the quantum world will be inhibited by this lack of
sophistication until extinction.
The time window for life to begin must have occurred
shortly after the atom was formed. The
question is where did microcrobe life form?
We know that the microcrobe can live for millions of years. It’s clear that the microbes that landed on
Earth came from the comets that formed around Jupiter. But the question remains: Is this the only
place that life formed as a product of comet formation, or did the microbes
just hitch a ride on these comets because they provided a better environment
than the comet from deep space, which had a different water molecule. Once we know the answer we will know if life
exists throughout the Universe or only within our Solar System.
[1] Every element except hydrogen listed in the Periodic
Table, up to Iron, was created in the life cycle of a star including the nova
(star explosion).
[2]
The decay of any object, system and/or critter is referred to as entropy. An antique table is going through a process
of entropy; a rusty nail; critters growing older; etc.
[3]
Loewenstein, Werner, “The Touch Stone of Life”, Oxford Press, 1999
[4] Wilson, Edward O., “The Future of Life”, Vintage Books,
2002
[5] A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the
living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea. About 5,000 viruses have been
described in detail, although there are millions of different types. Viruses
are found in almost every ecosystem on Earth and are the most abundant
type of biological entity. They appear to be the bridge between flora to fauna.
[6] A
radiation unit i.e.-curie, roentgen, rad, and rem.
[7] Warshofsky, Fred, “Stealing Time”, TV Books, 1999
[8] Scientists have determined that Earth’s water was
delivered to the upper atmosphere by comets.
A phenomenon that continues today.
[9] Schwartz, Jeffery M., & Begley, Sharon, “The Mind
& the Brain”, HarperCollins, 2002
[10] Llyod, Seth, “Programming the Universe”, Alfred A.
Knofp, 2006
[11] Heudin, Jean-Claude, Editor, “Virtual Worlds”, Perseus,
2004
[12] Guthrie, W.K.C., “The Greek Philosophers”, Harper,
1960
Yeesh, Halsey... where to begin? Uh... you've got some interesting ideas there, but I gotta give some feedback since you've gone ahead and posted this.
1) The formatting of this, with all the wierd line breaks, makes it rather difficult to read. A computer is not a typewriter. You don't have to hit "enter" at the end of every line as if it was the carriage return.
2) Some trivial typos and such...
a) Specie refers to money and is not the singular form of species, species is both plural and singular.
b) Withstand is one word
c) Earthly creature not earthy creature
d) mars meteorite needs to be re-evaluated
Now then, as to the actual content...
3) Oort cloud comets contain a "different kind of water"?? What different kind of water? Heavy water containing deuterium and tritium like they used to make the hydrogen bombs? I don't think so. This needs to be explained in much more detail.
4) "Age of earth excludes time for life to originate." 4.5 billion years? That's a LOT of time. That's about a third of the age of the entire universe. And of that time, life in it's most primordial form only began in the last couple of billion years. The chemical stew sat around cooking for a couple of billion years before that without anything much happening at all. Once life really got going (however that happened, and this is admittedly poorly understood) it had plenty of time to do it's thing. More on this below...
5) "Our DNA is too paltry to out the wiring of the human brain." What about dolphins? Or Chimpanzees? Their brains are almost as complex as ours, but just not quite. Are their brains also not coded by their DNA? True, human intelligence is much more advanced, and evinces "emergent" qualities of consciousness which are admittedly poorly understood. But that doesn't mean that DNA is insufficient to explain the structure and formation of the human brain.
6) Due to hydrogen bonding DNA replication operates at the "quantum level only". Uh... No. Just wrong. DNA replication is basic organic chemistry. We do not need to resort to quantum mechanical gobbledy-gook obfuscation regarding observational interference in order to explain the functioning of DNA.
7) "Our brains have not evolved to the point where original thought can occur". This a good one! If that were really true, why bother writing your book?
Returning to the theme from #4 above...
8) "The time window for life to begin must have occured shortly after the atom was formed". What does this even mean? Are you implying something about the big bang itself and the formation of the universe? This is the only way I can even begin to make sense of what you might be implying here, but it is completely unclear and not supported by any of evidence or argument whatsoever. Just saying something doesn't necessarily make it so.
And finally,
9) There's a bunch of stuff about Comets and Jupiter that suddenyl just comes out of left field. You seem to be trying to make an argument that comets brought the seeds of life to earth. This might be possible, but I don't think that if they did the process had anything to do with Jupiter.
In conclusion, I hope these comments are helpful. I mean them constructively. I wouldn't waste the time otherwise. I don't have any intention of discounting your thesis or saying that you're entirely wrong, but you've got some work to do in terms of polishing the writing and solidifying your case. Thanks for posting your work for us to read.
Geppetto, the toymaker who built the puppet Pinocchio, who came to "life" and later was granted the privelege of becoming a "real boy". Quite an apt analogy.
If we ever succeed in building a completely autonomous artificially intelligent robot, would it be considered to be "alive"? Or just a puppet? If human/machine cyborgs like the terminator or the replicants of Bladerunner could be generated, would they be "alive"? Puppet or Real Boy?
In both of these cases, the likely first answer is no. They do not self replicate, and in the terms of this article, they do not accumulate and retain "bits" of information. But what if they could? What if a self contained, autonomous artifically intelligent robotic device contained within it's programming all of the instructions for building more such devices like itself, and, in addition, the programming contained subrountines which would modify and idealize the replication process in response to environmental cues? Would this sort of device be considered, in the definition given, to be "alive"? Not so sure this time.
Yes or no to the "life" question, this sort of device, if achievable, could be a very effective means of launching a colonization mission to a relatively nearby and initially environmentally hostile planet. We could send a few hundred robots, with the means to construct a factory using local raw materials, and those few hundred could replicate millions of themselves and modify or "Terraform" the rough alien environment to make it more hospitable to us, the "masters", readying it for our eventual arrival... assuming of course that our mechanical minions would welcome our arrival and not make war against us in defense of their own newly developed mechanical paradise.
Rna and Dna are probably not the only signs of life.
Sometimes it makes me wonder if many of the scientists think that when we do find life somewhere, that it will resemble our own.
Just because things on Earth have Rna and Dna does not mean that it is required for life.
There could be life forms somewhere that are nothing like us at all, and that would not resemble anything we are used to in any way shape or form. Literally...
It is a big universe. There could also be parts of it that do not adhere to the physics and biology we have in this part of it.
It's pretty certain that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe. If they weren't there would be no mystery regarding missing mass in far off galaxies and the supposed existence of "dark matter" in order to explain it. We could just say, "Oh, well the laws of physics are different out there, and that's why it's like that." But we don't do that.
Now then, within the bounds of the laws of physics, as we know them, and the functional rules of chemistry, there may indeed be room for unusual and different forms of organic biological systems that do not even rely on RNA or DNA to be "alive". What these might be, or look like, I don't know, but it is certainly possible.
Aperiodic crystals could be the first phase of life but the question remains, what gives it purpose to proceed to a living organism.
... Second law of thermodynamics, maybe?