linkedin post 2021-01-24 06:02:00
View of Girona cathedral from La Devessa Park. View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:58:52
SO ENDS this first of two weekends considering modular metabolism and its implications. Modularity is a widespread, efficient and interesting phenomena in living systems, operating at all levels from genes to ecosystems. One can imagine modular systems clipping onto an invisible underlying pegboard driven by the laws of physics and mathematics, even the nonliving world, with its underlying orderliness, so all of creation is pegged onto this undulating frame, an ecology of numbers. But I do digress and speculate! Forgive me. View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:48:19
SIXTY ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. “Over the past centuries the ability to observe and collect data representing the physical world has been one of the great accomplishments of mankind. This includes observations ranging from the diminutive to the unimaginably large. Everything we know and everything we can possibly know is constrained in size and distance by two boundaries. The upper limit is given by the size of the observable universe with a comoving diameter of about 10(27) meters. The lower limit is the Planck length, at which the structure of space‐time is dominated by quantum effects, of 10(-35) meters.” https://lnkd.in/dSy9iPW View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:47:23
THE CORRECT ANALOGY. “More importantly, what really distinguishes biology from physics are survival and reproduction, and the concomitant notion of function. Therefore, in our opinion, the most effective language to describe functional modules and their interactions will be derived from the synthetic sciences, such as computer science or engineering, in which function appears naturally.” https://www.nature.com/articles/35011540 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:43:29
BIDIRECTIONAL INFORMATION. “Information flows bidirectionally between different levels of biological organization. For instance, the macroscopic signals that a cell receives from its environment can influence which genes it expresses — and thus which proteins it contains at any given time — or even the rate of mutation of its DNA, which could lead to changes in the molecular structures of the proteins. This is in contrast to physical systems where, typically, macroscopic perturbations or higher-level structures do not modify the structure of the molecular components.” https://www.nature.com/articles/35011540 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:42:19
PHYSICS VS BIOLOGY. “In addition, the components of physical systems are often simple entities, whereas in biology each of the components is often a microscopic device in itself, able to transduce energy and work far from equilibrium.” https://www.nature.com/articles/35011540 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:40:47
TOP HEAVY, BOTTOM HEAVY. “Biological systems are very different from the physical or chemical systems analysed by statistical mechanics or hydrodynamics. Statistical mechanics typically deals with systems containing many copies of a few interacting components, whereas cells contain from millions to a few copies of each of thousands of different components, each with very specific interactions.” https://www.nature.com/articles/35011540 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-24 05:40:03
PHASE CHANGES. “The concept of phase (or state) transitions from physics may help unify different observations and experiments. Moreover, many molecular details are simply not needed to describe phenomena on the desired functional level.” https://www.nature.com/articles/35011540 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-25 04:37:48
SHORT WARNING. “Thus, more detailed predictions of ICMEs as well as any predictions of activity driven by other solar wind and IMF structures not observable by means other than in-situ measurements are available only 30–60 minutes prior to its arrival at Earth.” (ICME = interplanetary magnetic cloud) https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn
linkedin post 2021-01-25 04:35:16
ACTUAL PREDICTIONS. “Details of the storm intensity can only be predicted when the ICME has propagated to L1 distance (First Lagrangian point at 220 RE upwind from the Earth) where the solar wind monitors (presently SOHO and ACE) record the polarity and intensity of the interplanetary magnetic field and the velocity and density structure of the solar wind plasma.” (ICME = interplanetary magnetic cloud) https://link.springer.com/article/10.12942/lrsp-2007-1 View in LinkedIn