3 ms·
The article mentions that some cell actually depend on 'unstable' conditions for their optimal metabolism. This may be surprising as maintaining homeostasis (co
by woolion 2y ago
The article mentions that some cell actually depend on 'unstable' conditions for their optimal metabolism.
This may be surprising as maintaining homeostasis (constant environment) is a 'fundamental rule' of cell biology at the cell level... yet ideas such that fasting might be beneficial to cell metabolism do suggest the principle does apply.
Which isn't very surprising, in macro-biology animals or plants evolve in a way that make them expect varying conditions (e.g. cold in the winter, hot in summer). At a certain point the organisms become dependent on the expected instability. Natural selection operates on the environment it is given.
It would be more interesting to know if they define precisely what instability is (expected or unexpected, etc), but I haven't read the paper.
- gradschoolfail 2y agoFrom the paper: “ instability is defined as the relative propensity of the subunit to undergo a physical disintegration of its structure, either spontaneously, or through the action of degradative agent such as an enzyme.” Relative to what? other subunits. The caption to figure 2: “ If the B subunit is less stable than A subunit (indicated in gray font), this leads to a reduced population of AB replicators and free A subunits; this represents a more complex system because it yields a set with two distinct members.” It’s not clear to me if this is the most general example they can think of, but later in the paper they relate SAI to a particular cellular automaton, Langton’s loop. Overall 6/10, requires work, more erudite reviewers/promoters, or quantamagazine to determine if the field is indeed interesting.