Chemists create ’artificial chemical evolution’ for the first time

Scientists have taken an important step towards the possibility of creating synthetic life with the development of a form of artificial evolution in a simple chemistry set without DNA. A team from the University of Glasgow's School of Chemistry report in a new paper today (Monday 8 December) on how they have managed to create an evolving chemical system for the first time. The process uses a robotic 'aid' and could be used in the future to 'evolve' new chemicals capable of performing specific tasks. The researchers used a specially-designed open source robot based upon a cheap 3D printer to create and monitor droplets of oil in water-filled Petri dishes in their lab. Each droplet was composed from a slightly different mixture of four chemical compounds. Droplets of oil move in water like primitive chemical machines, transferring chemical energy to kinetic energy. The researchers' robot used a video camera to monitor, process and analyse the behaviour of 225 differently-composed droplets, identifying a number of distinct characteristics such as vibration or clustering.