FOOD AND OUR MOLECULAR MACHINES

Food is needed by our molecular machinery for two reasons: energy and parts. Parts to be used as building-blocks for making more machines, and parts needed as plug-in subordinates for machines so that they can carry out a particular function.

Water is the most common example, partly because of its lubricating dance round the machines and partly because it is needed for their operation in ways we have yet to discover.

Food can therefore be seen as logical input, some of the 'premises' upon which the processing of logical devices work for the functioning of the organism.

The input, processing and output are the logical necessities of life.

If, if and only if the premises are true and the reasoning is true will the conclusion be true. So long as premises and reasoning remain true, life is the conclusion. When they fail to be true the conclusion ceases to be life.

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That means the old adage, 'Feed an illness', can be seen as beefing up the logical input in order to process the logical anomaly out of the organisam. It is rather like tracking down and prosecuting a criminal in order to get him out of society--more input from the police, the lawyers and the courts is needed.

SKINKS MAKE THEMSELVES LEGLESS IN AUSTRALIA

Over a mere 3.6 million years some Australian skinks have developed an elongate, limbless form. Limbs were not needed for swimming through water and sand, so that genetic expression was processed out of them by the clever biomolecular processing of the aeons.

Nowadays other organisms in Australia have found far quicker ways of getting legless. But not so much intelligence is at work. An evolutionary dead end, obviously.

DNA-TO-LIFE FEEDBACK LOOP AGAIN SHOWN

It is only a short step from the life-to-genes/genes-to-life feedback loop shown in this ScienceDaily article to the evolutionary feedback and development of organisms. 'Go forth and multiply and change and improve your kind throughout the aeons. Even change your kind to a better kind.'

It is of course not just genes involved. The organism rests on its molecules, all of them, so the feedback/feedforward loop is universal.

As, by a nice coincidence, some Spanish snails well illustrate.

JUNK DNA HAS A VITAL FUNCTION

Surprise, surprise. The so-called 'junk' DNA is being found to be very important. The molecules are obviously much smarter than the 'junk' scientists. Details in ScienceDaily.

GENE-SPLICING A NORMAL FUNCTION

This ScienceDail report shows that messing about with the structure of mRNA so as to form different proteins from the same gene is a common cellular function.

That surely is one of the mechanisms by which organisms adapt to their environments--i.e., by which they evolve. Smart molecules messing about with the base structure to make it better. The slow processing of the aeons, and here we all are--Hallelujah!

FAST MOLECULAR MEMBRANE FUSION AT SYNAPSES

How signals flow between neurons is explained by new research, reports ScienceDaily

MOTOR PROTEIN THAT REWINDS DNA

The molecular motor that rewinds DNA when it has become unwound, the little fixer that untangles the tangles and pops the bubbles and restores proper genetic function has been identified, reports ScienceDaily.

MACHINERY OF MEMORY IDENTIFIED

This ScienceDaily article provides good evidence for what I have long postulated is the way memory functions is set up and functions--i.e., that the brain uses a molecular addressing system to mark a network, a pattern, of neurons that constitute a specific memory.

Just as we put addresses into the nodes on a computer network so that messages get to the right one, so the brain does something similar. We, subconsciously, have emulated, very crudely, how our own brains work.

And just as a computer network hunts for the right node, so a neuron hunts for the connections that have the same molecular marker on a synapse. That explains why we almost get a memory, it is on the tip of our tongues, then 'Ah, got it!' as the last neurons are found.

That system would also make the most efficient use of neurons, because the same ones could be used for many different memories. Each one could have many different molecular addresses, linking it under different circumstances to a vast range of different network patterns. Otherwise the brain would be in danger of running out of storage. But with a hundred billion neurons, each with a myriad of molecular addresses, the storage and processing power would be infinite.