If I had a microscope that could see atoms and molecules, how far out would I need to zoom before I could tell I was looking at life?
I’ve heard things like “people are 70% water” but water is not alive.
I’m asking in chemistry because I’m not sure if life at a molecular level is considered biology.
In: Chemistry
Well, at molecular level you can recognize life by the hyper complex molecules that defy the logic of what you’d expect to see from chemistry alone.
For example our DNA string is a single molecule, 3 **billion** base pairs chained together, something that would never happen if you just randomly mixed the ingredients.
And then you see an identical string a tiny bit to the left, exactly the same type of atoms in the same order in another long string
You see complex protein machines doing jobs, all also a single molecule that got assembled from a partial copy that genetic string. Some like motor proteins basically carry stuff while “walking” with some simple feet that are part of the same molecule
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