Etymology

chemoton

C3H4E1M3O1T1O1N1

Today it means: A fundamental unit of life; a computational abstraction of a protocell, having the properties of metabolism and self-replication and a bilipid membrane. Full definition →

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The story

Short for chemical automaton; introduced by Hungarian theoretical biologist Tibor Gánti.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.