Astrobiology. 2010 Dec;10(10):1031-42. doi: 10.1089/ast.2010.0532.
All life today incorporates a variety of systems controlled by negative feedback loops and sometimes amplified by positive feedback loops. The first forms of life necessarily also required primitive versions of feedback, yet surprisingly little emphasis has been given to the question of how feedback emerged out of primarily chemical systems. One chemical system has been established that spontaneously develops autocatalytic feedback, the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. In this essay, I discuss the BZ reaction as a possible model for similar reactions that could have occurred under prebiotic Earth conditions. The main point is that the metabolism of contemporary life evolved from primitive homeostatic networks regulated by negative feedback. Because life could not exist in their absence, feedback loops should be included in definitions of life.
今天所有的生命都包含了各种由负反馈回路控制的系统，有时还会被正反馈回路放大。最初的生命形式也必然需要原始版本的反馈，但令人惊讶的是，人们很少关注反馈是如何从主要的化学系统中产生的。已经建立了一个化学系统，它会自发地发展出自催化反馈，即别洛索夫-扎鲍廷斯基（BZ）反应。在本文中，我将讨论 BZ 反应作为可能的模型，用于类似的反应，这些反应可能在原始地球条件下发生。主要观点是，当代生命的新陈代谢是从由负反馈调节的原始动态平衡网络中进化而来的。因为没有它们生命就无法存在，所以反馈回路应该包含在生命的定义中。
