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SATURABLE OPTIONS. “Convergent evolution, which happens often, and concludes that the space of phenotypes is “saturable” and has been quite saturated by evolution.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

CLOSE TO LIMITS. “The evidence actually suggests otherwise, and in doing so indicates that, with one crucial exception, not only is there a limit to biological complexity but in a way analogous to the extremophiles these limits may be close to being reached.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

UNLIMITED LIMITS. “Not only will we not make all possible proteins of length 200 or 2000, we will not make all possible organs, organisms, social systems, . . . There is an indefinite hierarchy of non-ergodicity as the complexity of the objects we consider increases.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

LIMITS OF TIME. “In short, in the lifetime of our universe, only a tiny fraction of all possible proteins of length 200 can have been created. This means profound things.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

ACTUAL PROTEINS. “Now let us ask if the universe can have created all these proteins since its inception 13.8 billion years ago. There are roughly 10 to the 80th particles in the known universe. If these were doing nothing, ignoring space-like separation, but making proteins on the shortest timescale in the universe, the Planck timescale of 10 raised to the −43 seconds, it would take 10 raised to the 39th power times the lifetime of our universe to make all possible proteins of length 200, just once.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

THEORETICAL PROTEIN POSSIBILITIES. “A biological protein can range from perhaps fifty amino acids long to several thousands. A typical length is three hundred amino acids long. Then let us consider all possible proteins that are two hundred amino acids in length. How many are possible? Each position in the two hundred has twenty possible choices of amino acids, so there are 20 × 20 × 20 . . . 200 times, or 20 to the 200th power, which is roughly 10 to the 260th power possible proteins of 200 amino acids in length.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

FROM PARTICLES TO PROTEINS. “Has the universe in 13.8 billion years of existence created all the possible fundamental particles and stable atoms? Yes. Now consider proteins. These are linear sequences of twenty kinds of amino acids that typically fold into some shape and catalyze a reaction or perform some structural or other function.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

PHYSICAL LIMITS. “We reach the final level of complexity, at least at a biological level. We can’t run at 40 mph (although a spurt of c. 23 mph is by no means negligible), nor fly (but a gin and tonic at 38000 feet has its merits), nor swim the Pacific (although the free diving record of 800 feet deserves a salute), but we can out-think any other organism that has ever evolved.” https://lnkd.in/euEN3Eh View in LinkedIn

MUTANT SWARMS. "Evolution of RNA viruses occurs through disequilibria of collections of closely related mutant spectra or mutant clouds termed viral quasispecies." https://lnkd.in/d9Upsp3 View in LinkedIn

"VIRAL QUASISPECIES are the mutant distributions (also termed mutant swarms or mutant clouds) that are generated upon replication of RNA viruses, and some DNA viruses in infected cells and organisms." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042682215001580 View in LinkedIn