Posted: May 16, 2012 10:02 pm
Spearthrower wrote:
Organisation in nature is a product of conflicting forces, not an orchestrated intentional event.
The organization is not so much the product of conflicting forces. It is more accurate to say that conflicting forces are used in the organization.
From [url]http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/homepage/news-and-topstories/en/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2270&cHash=2d042440f3[/url] MedUni Vienna: Key gene function against cell death discovered
The human body maintains a stable equilibrium between cell death and the breakdown of tissue and the regeneration of tissue from stem cells. Stem cells have the potential to develop into other types of cells such as skin, muscle or nerve cells and are therefore crucial for the rebuilding of tissue. A human stomach cells, for example, lives only two days. Skin cells live for up to four weeks. A lung cell dies after around 80 days and a red blood cell dies after around 120 days.
The two proteins TSC (tuberin) and PRAS40 are crucial for this development, deciding whether the stem cell develops correctly or undergoes apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death. They act, as it were, as ‘gatekeepers’.
The question is, what is doing the organizing? The researchers imply, in this case, that it is the human body. This is rather vague which isn't very surprising as it is something that's very hard to pin down. It is certainly not the genome that's doing the organizing. The genome of itself can do nothing and also the same genome sits in the stomach cells and in the skin cells.
Spearthrower wrote:
Snow drifts are 'organised' by the wind, by the aerodynamic qualities of the various geometric shapes on the ground, and gravity. They come out fairly highly organised, and are quite repeatable given very similar circumstances. Something can be 'incredible' in the sense of looking at the final product, but perfectly mundane when looking at how it arrived at that level of organisation.
You are comparing snow drifts with this!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKW4F0Nu-UY[/youtube]