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FACT. "Most eukaryotes live unicellular lives." A surprise. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

AN ENTIRETY. "Geometrically each web structure is conceptually triangular; it has a function, or its purpose, materials and geometry. These are defined by design variables, like dimensions and strength. These are combined to decision variables, like cost and reliability." https://lnkd.in/dYdY4x3 View in LinkedIn

SIZE DOES NOT MATTER. "It is not clear that the ∼12,500 genes of Dictyostelium discoideum or any of its eukaryote-specific cell structures give it an advantage over Myxococcus xanthus, with ∼7,500 genes (and no eukaryotic cell structures)." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

PERFORMANCE DRIVERS. "Under distributed loads the stiff behaviour of silk under small deformation, before the yield point, is essential in maintaining the web’s structural integrity. The superior performance of silk in webs is therefore not due merely to its exceptional ultimate strength and strain, but arises from the nonlinear response of silk threads to strain and their geometrical arrangement in a web." https://lnkd.in/dYdY4x3 View in LinkedIn

BIASED METRICS. "However, cyanobacteria will also surely evolve differently from mycoplasmas or methanogens. What are our principled metrics for degrees of difference, and how are we sure that these are free of the sorts of eukaryocentric bias that we discuss in the next section? What is our metric for “richer evolutionary potential”." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues the meditation on the flat twisted tessellations known as spider webs; between the geometric curiosities, the cunning molecular design, and the biological diversity of these structures and their inhabitants, resides a case study of the ingenious options explored by blind experimentation and natural selection for fitness. A case study that has been the illusive goal of engineers and biochemists alike. View in LinkedIn

TEMPO AND MODE. "Unquestionably, eukaryotes evolve differently in tempo and mode than do prokaryotes, if we assess this by uniform measures of structural and functional innovation at the levels of genes and their products or cellular phenotypes." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

RADICALLY ALTERNATIVE METRIC. "Conceivably, its pangenome (especially if including rarer interspecific transfers) gives this single bacterial “species” a far greater range of metabolic innovation than that shown by all eukaryotes, a defensible alternative metric of evolutionary potential." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

COMPLEXITY AND THE PARAGENOME. "However, we would surely be hard pressed to show that co-optation is a more effective route to evolutionary innovation than LGT. Indeed, if LGT is fully integrated into our understanding of genomic complexity, then it is perhaps the full E. coli pangenome, soon to be if not already exceeding in number of coding sequences the human genome, that should be compared with the latter." (LGT = lateral gene transfer). http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn

EXAPTATION OF NON-CODING DNA. "We are left then with the evolutionary potential of excess eukaryotic DNA and its ability to be co-opted into function, which might well impart a different tempo and mode to eukaryotic evolution." http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/10278.full View in LinkedIn