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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

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

"THE SPIRAL LOOPS are built from the inside out and are therefore analogues of the auxiliary spiral in Araneus diadematus." https://lnkd.in/dfsDEVZ View in LinkedIn

STEPWISE CONSTRUCTION. "After exploration of the web site an orb web spider constructs (1) frame and initial radii, (2) all other radii and the hub, (3) the auxiliary spiral (from the inside out) and finally (4) the capture spiral (from the outside in)." https://lnkd.in/dfsDEVZ View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this meditation on spider web geometry. That such a tiny creature can have so sophisticated a grasp of geometric realities in an improvised and highly dynamic environment that constantly changes is remarkable. Add to that the well-known but beyond the Bell curve physical properties of spider silk, brewed at ambient temperatures in this small beast, after millennia of design experiments. Observe, connect in the mind, and be humbled by the merest of nature's designs. View in LinkedIn