Generalizations about bacteriology: thermodynamic, open systems, genetic instructions, and evolution

Abstract

Biological generalizations about bacteriology are discussed to provide a broad perspective of what we know about bacteria. Bacteriology (and possibly all biology) from an overall perspective can be researched and understood as observations and experimentations on mass and energy, which are themselves the products of evolutionary change for about 3.5-3.9 billion years. All organisms have mass, transform, store and use biochemical energy and obey the most fundamental of all laws--the laws of thermodynamics. Bacteria can be viewed as semi-permeable, thermodynamically open systems of mass, controlled by relatively small amounts of genetic instructions with lower entropy than their higher entropy, surrounding environments. Some fundamental properties describing bacterial life are also presented.

Life is a Self-Organizing Machine Driven by the Informational Cycle of Brillouin

“…Cells, surrounded or not by semi-permeable membranes (Trevors and Pollack, 2005), are open systems (Trevors, 2010). This property is an unescapable condition for life.…”

“…Hence, in order to analyse life as a general phenomenon, not restricted to particular terrestrial circumstances, one is led to examine the innermost physical principles underlying this puzzling form of matter organization. Even if current physical models are incapable of recapitulating the complexity of life, life is however expected to obey the same physical laws as any other piece of matter (Trevors, 2010). The most amazing feature of life is its apparent capacity to climb back up the chemical randomisation expected from the second law of thermodynamics.…”

Hypothesized origin of microbial life in a prebiotic gel and the transition to a living biofilm and microbial mats

“…The origin of life is elusive from an experimental perspective; however recent hypotheses and ideas have been proposed [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Plausible hypotheses as to where [13], time scales relevant in biology [14] and how life organized are under investigation especially in the initial absence of organic genetic instructions and enzyme controlled metabolism and replication.…”