Life elsewhere may not look like life on Earth, so how do we recognize it? One promising clue is the presence of very complex molecules—the kind that usually take many steps to build. But could nonliving environments accidentally produce the same signal? I explored this by simulating “worlds” made of tiny, connected pools—think pores in rock or channels in a hydrothermal system—where chemicals flow in, react, drift to neighbors, and wash out again.
What emerged is that space and flow matter a lot. Certain layouts and moderate mixing can nudge chemistry toward more intricate products, even without biology. In contrast, highly disordered connections—or mixing that’s too fast—tend to erase or dilute complexity before it can accumulate or be detected. The takeaway is practical: measuring “complexity alone” can mislead if we ignore how the environment moves and organizes matter. Accounting for transport and topology helps us design better life-detection strategies and laboratory setups—both to avoid false positives and to deliberately cultivate conditions where complexity can arise from scratch.