Can self-replicating species flourish in the interior of a star?

Abstract

The existing view of biological life is that it evolves under suitable conditions in the low-temperature world of atoms and molecules on the surface of a planet. It is believed that any plausible extraterrestrial form of life must resemble the life on Earth that is ruled by the biochemistry of nucleic acids, proteins, and sugars. Going against this dogma, we argue that an advanced form of life based upon short-lived species can exist inside main-sequence stars like our Sun.