What properties of life are universal? Substance-free, scale-free life

Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere : the Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life
Vic Norris

Abstract

One approach to answering the question of what properties of life are universal is to try to answer the question of what are the essential properties of biology's best understood model organism, Escherichia coli. One of these properties is competitive coherence whereby E. coli reconciles the generation of a coherent cell state with the generation of a coherent sequence of cell states. The second property is differentiation which occurs ineluctably when E. coli divides. The third property is dualism which is how E. coli navigates between the two main attractors of phenotypes - survival and growth - which are based on quasi-equilibrium and non-equilibrium structures, respectively. The fourth property is complementarity: the interactions between the molecules and macromolecules that constitute E. coli protect them from degradation and confer new properties. The fifth property is multi-scale existence: E. coli exists at levels extending from the bacterium to the global super-organism. The sixth property is maintenance of connectivity; growth alters connectivity and, in the case of E. coli, alters the phenotype. The seventh property is the combination of intensity sensing (the constituents can work no harder) and quantity sensing (t...Continue Reading

References

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Jul 13, 2007·Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere : the Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life·Vic NorrisK Sriram
Sep 28, 2007·Annual Review of Microbiology·Vic NorrisMichel Thellier
Oct 16, 2012·Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere : the Journal of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life·Vic NorrisAlain Thierry
Jun 25, 2013·Theory in Biosciences = Theorie in Den Biowissenschaften·Vic NorrisJean-Nicolas Audinot
Dec 20, 2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·María Antonia Sánchez-Romero, Josep Casadesús
Jan 1, 2012·Life·Vic Norris, Patrick Amar

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