Work coordinated by Steen from Tamulis, LANL, and others.
Description missing. STEEN
LIPID WORLD is a tool developed within PACE project that allows one to study the formation and evolution of lipid aggregates like micelles and vesicles which are crucial for the emergence of early life. A molecular dynamics approach is used to simulate the motion of individual particles with high physical accuracy. The tool furthermore allows to define chemical reactions which are incorporated into the model by means of a stochastic process. The user can configure the simulation by defining arbitrary particles and interactions between them. In addition, he can change underlying physical laws by writing short functions in the Python programming language. The aim of the tool is to explore the impact of a variety of physical parameters (e.g. noise and friction) on the dynamics of lipid aggregates. Furthermore, the tool allows to study auto- and cross-catalytic reactions between lipids that might have been important in the early stages of life.