Cell-like space charge configurations formed by self-organization in laboratory

Abstract

A phenomenological model of self-organization explaining the emergence of a complexity with features that apparently satisfy the specific criteria usually required for recognizing the appearance of life in laboratory is presented. The described phenomenology, justified by laboratory experiments, is essentially based on local self-enhancement and long-range inhibition. The complexity represents a primitive organism self-assembled in a gaseous medium revealing, immediately after its "birth", many of the prerequisite features that attribute them the quality to evolve, under suitable conditions, into a living cell.