Tag Archives: Morphogenesis

“Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death”, a Review and Thoughts on this Life

Leave a reply

I begin this post in my usual way of attempting to incorporate the science presented in Lane’s book into my own understanding of life. That’s what I do through the first portions of this piece. Then I stray….discussing how I understand the process of homeostasis and what I see as the extension of this, relationship as integral to complexity itself, developing from necessary sensitivity, the ‘awareness’, necessary for internal communication,  signaling, responsiveness and, ultimately, the coordination of internal functioning and cognition, sentience and ,ultimately, intelligence. It is a process of accretion, with increasing complexity. The links between related ‘things’ are then not just physical, they are energetically connected. I’ll leave this now for later.

I’ve just finished reading evolutionary biochemist, Nick Lane’s latest book, “Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death”.  It is not light reading. There are diagrams of chemical reactions, often with descriptions that urge the reader to not get overly hung up on them, the terms and steps. They are not simple processes. One transformation following another, necessarily, in precise order, until removed for other processes, other needs, the remainder augmented by what is required to continue on. Uninterrupted. Billions of times per second. He writes about the quantum hopping occurring in reactions instantaneously. Shared electrons. The flow of protons in the continuous ‘flux’ of life. The processes changing ‘directions’, spinning off secondary products, closing and reopening paths as the cell and organism works to maintain homeostasis, interpreting the seeming chaos of activity into the sustenance of life. It is a ‘story’ of constant metabolic change, patterned and ‘free’, the work of homeostasis that takes place within every organism. There is a lot here I write of not in the book, but which I’ve picked up in my other reading. And, again, I’ll remind you that as an intuiter, I combine ideas, works from disparate sciences and follow my own paths. This is another part of my journey to understanding this world.

His other books have been more accessible, for this reader anyway, but to move ahead in one’s understanding of life’s complexity, one has to have an understanding of the concepts and big ideas involved. Life isn’t magic. Its study can be simultaneously intimidating and fascinating as well as a wondrous process when look closely. I’ll be rereading this one to pick up more bits later. Continue reading →

Sex, Evolution and Form: Clarifying the Relationship Between Dandelion and the European Honey Bee

Leave a reply

With the artist’s, Sue Abonyi’s, permission.

The European Honeybee, EHB, and the Common Dandelion, are both ubiquitous in our modern urban lives though the one is portrayed as being both essential to our lives while its future is threatened and dependent upon our constant support. The Dandelion in contrast is a product of our disruption of the natural world and our very way of life and continues on as a pest species despite our efforts to ‘control’ it. They viability of the EHB is often linked to the continuation of a large population of Dandelion individuals. The EHB certainly benefits from the Common Dandelion finding ready individuals across our lawns and gardens, but the dandelion isn’t particularly dependent upon the EHB. The common dandelion, Taraxacum officinalis, is apomictic and doesn’t require pollinators at all. Apomixis isn’t a fancy word for ‘selfing’ or wind pollination either…what it means is that it, in lieu of an available pollinator, possess the capacity to skip over meiosis, the entire part of sexual reproduction in which an organism’s typical double, pair of chromosomes, which exist normally in all cells, and are known as diploid, ‘di’ for two sets of chromosomes, are reduced by half, to one set in ‘sexual’ cells, known as gametes, the sperm and egg cells, their chromosomes now ‘haploid’. Then, after pollination, the two haploid chromosomes are reunited uniquely through the process of fertilization. This is is the process skipped over in an apomictic plant. While it possess all of the ‘accoutrements’ of all flowering plants, stamen with their filaments and anthers, pistils with their stigma, style and fused carpels or ovaries, Dandelions are able to ‘short-circuit’ the process and produce viable seed on their own from their undivided, diploid, cells. Ever noticed how Dandelion seed heads always tend to be filled out? Perfectly spherical? Continue reading →