Molecular biology primer

Here is a good unfinished primer on molecular biology (it’s still being written):

http://openwetware.org/images/3/3d/SB_Primer_100707.pdf

Possible life in plasma

Here is an interesting New Scientist article about a computer simulation of dust in interstellar plasma that groups itself into DNA-like structures (coincidence?) and has a lot of features similar to living systems. This is the first example I have seen of people writing a computer program that is not biologically inspired and getting something like an alife program. And I’m sure this might happen again as physics simulations become more realistic, then we can really start generalizing about life-like processes. Here is the paper the article was based on:

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1367-2630/9/8/263/njp7_8_263.pdf