Michael Levin's work seems incredibly important and one of the most likely truly breakthrough discoveries I've heard of in a long while. I'm not so sure about R

Michael Levin's work seems incredibly important and one of the most likely truly breakthrough discoveries I've heard of in a long while. I'm not so sure about RNA memory storage but the point about unicellular life possessing some form of information processing ability is certainly something more people should be thinking about. The fact that such complex behaviour is possible on that minuscule of a scale means there is really something special about the computational properties of organic chemistry. I can't help but feel a lot of the hardware that makes up macro scale life is really just used for dealing with the inefficiencies of getting so many individual cells to cooperate and interface with their environment in a coordinated manner. Single celled organisms have a shorter round trip time for their decision - action - sensation loop but are generally unable to make major modifications to their surroundings by acting or moving. Nonetheless, I think they're a lot smarter than we give them credit for.