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SCALES. "It may be difficult to imagine that your body is made of spinning protons, neutrons, and electrons, but this is indeed the case. It's slightly easier, however, to picture forms of matter in levels that increase in complexity. For example, subatomic particles can be organized into atoms, which are the components of molecules, and molecules can be organized into macromolecules, such as DNA and proteins, which can be built into cells." https://lnkd.in/epkJVpt View in LinkedIn

DIZZYING GYRES. "The release of lysis products by phages converts organic carbon from particulate (cells) to dissolved forms (lysis products), which makes organic carbon more bio-available and thus acts as a catalyst of geochemical nutrient cycles." (Thank you WB Yeats). https://lnkd.in/eJieipg View in LinkedIn

NUMEROUS. "There are probably more individual bacteriophages in the biosphere than there are of any other group of organisms, including all the prokaryotes." https://lnkd.in/eBxpUF7 View in LinkedIn

BACTERIOPHAGES. "It is widely accepted that phages represent substantial forces in prokaryotic evolution, with the integrated phages (prophages) accounting for as much as 10-20% of some bacterial genomes. Recent data reveal that several non-retroviral viruses have also contributed to the genetic makeup of many eukaryotic organisms." http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/276/ View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS the section on biological complexity. Not only is the discrete attribute of life on an ascending scale hard to define -- where a molecule ends and an organism starts -- but increasingly, there is an appreciation that the cell blurs into the organism, which blurs into the population, which in turn is interactive in an ecosystem. View in LinkedIn

ONE BASE CHANGE. "For example, a mutation, or change, in a single DNA base in a single gene can result in diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy in humans at the organismal level." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn

EXQUISITE PARTICULARITY. "A very small change in a single macromolecule can have a profound effect on an organism, or even a population, when magnified through levels of complexity. For instance, when a disturbance such as a genetic mutation is introduced in any level, it can affect all of the higher levels of organization. The effect of such a disturbance can be either severe or trivial." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn

SINGULAR LAYERS. "Likewise, our understanding of the new emergent properties at a higher level does not help us understand the properties of the lower levels, because each integrative level of organization has its own particular structure and emergent properties." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn

SCALE GENERATES NEW PROPERTIES. "No matter how well we understand the physics and chemistry of living systems, we must recognize that living systems, and other high integrative levels, have new and unique properties that emerge through the combination of the lower-level units of matter." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn

UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS. "A single-celled bacterium is alive, but if you separate the macromolecules that combined to create the bacterium, these units are not alive. Based on our knowledge of macromolecules, we would not have been able to predict that they could combine to form a living organism, nor could we have predicted all of the characteristics of the resulting bacterium." http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/biological-complexity-and-integrative-levels-of-organization-468 View in LinkedIn