‘Recover it From the Facts as We Know Them’

Aliens — as we know them

Cis-spliced acceptors can be converted to trans-splicing acceptors if the donor site upstream is mutated, and similarly an SL addition site will be cis-spliced if a donor site is inserted upstream. What is the function of SL trans-splicing? SL addition provides the cell with an alternative way of capping mRNAs, a modification required for mRNA stability, transport and translation. The standard ...

Mitochondria as we don't know them.

Biochemistry textbooks depict mitochondria as oxygen-dependent organelles, but many mitochondria can produce ATP without using any oxygen. In fact, several other types of mitochondria exist and they occur in highly diverse groups of eukaryotes - protists as well as metazoans - and possess an often overlooked diversity of pathways to deal with the electrons resulting from carbohydrate oxidation....

Databases, But Not As We Know Them

Life as we know it

This paper presents a heuristic proof (and simulations of a primordial soup) suggesting that life-or biological self-organization-is an inevitable and emergent property of any (ergodic) random dynamical system that possesses a Markov blanket. This conclusion is based on the following arguments: if the coupling among an ensemble of dynamical systems is mediated by short-range forces, then the st...

Life, but not as we know it.

Living systems are perhaps the most fascinating examples of chemistry in action. Molecules assemble into biomachinery that can carry out complex tasks, making life possible. But how did it all begin? This question can be tackled from a geological perspective by surveying the possible conditions under which key biomolecules might have emerged on early Earth. Alternatively, a systems-biology appr...