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EFFICIENCY IN SIMPLICITY. "In fact, because of their more rapid generation times and larger population sizes, we might expect prokaryotes to have more exquisitely refined regulatory systems, more selection per base pair as it were—a sort of historical complexity, alluded to above in our cyanobacteria vs. marsupial comparison." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

EFFICIENCY FALSEHOOD. "There is no reason to believe that unicellular protists with large genomes regulate the expression of their genes more efficiently or with greater flexibility than do prokaryotes with much less DNA." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

MESSY AND MALADADAPTIVE. "Some theorists have argued that the eukaryotic nucleus is the more primitive, burdened with inefficiencies left over from a rather messy origin of cellular life. Others, as we noted earlier, see it as replete with maladaptive genomic accumulations, which may or may not affect regulation of gene expression." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

NON-CODING DNA. "Although there is some roughly similar correlation in the number of protein coding sequences, most differences in genome size reflect transposable elements and noncoding intergenic spacers. Accepting (for argument only) that this material is regulatory in nature, we might still ask whether its possession is an evolutionary advancement, enabling greater phenotypic complexity." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

GENOMIC COMPLEXITY. "Maynard Smith and Szathmáry, not unlike others, entertained a genomic measure of complexity, noting in its favor a general increase in DNA content from prokaryotes to protists to multicellular animals and plants." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

SUPERORGANISMS. "Of course, a human is in many ways more complex an organism than a single E. coli cell, and to understand the former is, by far, the more daunting task. However, perhaps this comparison is not the right one. Shapiro has long held that it is the microbial colony and not the solitary cell on which biologists should focus their attention." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

MULTICELLULARITY NOT RARE. "Of course, many other eukaryotes are capable of producing a few different cell types, but the same is true for prokaryotes, some of which produce radically different cell morphologies." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

WIDE RANGE. "The results of the web optimization provide insight into understanding how natural spider webs can range over 2 orders of magnitude in size, yet achieve similar mechanical functions." https://lnkd.in/d5Wdths View in LinkedIn

ECONOMICAL. "Because the energetic cost to spiders to produce silk is high, their webs are typically composed of extremely thin threads of a few micrometers in diameter, which are strong enough to sustain their functions for significant periods of time." https://lnkd.in/d5Wdths View in LinkedIn

OPTIMIZED COSTS AND RESULTS. "To understand how particular web architectures arise, we must consider the competition between minimizing energy costs to the spider and maximizing mechanical function and longevity." https://lnkd.in/d5Wdths View in LinkedIn