PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging

Living things usually prefer stability to conserve energy and resources, but instability might also play a vital role, says USC Dornsife molecular biologist John Tower.

A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging
2024-05-17
(Press-News.org)

By Darrin S. Joy

A molecular biologist at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences may have found a new “rule of biology.”

A rule of biology, sometimes called a biological law, describes a recognized pattern or truism among living organisms. Allen’s rule, for example, states that among warm-blooded animals, those found in colder areas have shorter, thicker limbs (to conserve body heat) than those in hotter regions, which need more body surface area to dissipate heat. 

Zoologist Joel Allen formulated this idea in 1877, and though he wasn’t the first or the last to present a rule of biology, his is one of just a handful to gain acceptance among scientists. 

Now, John Tower, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, believes he has uncovered another rule of biology. He published his idea on May 16 in the journal Frontiers in Aging.

Life may require instability

Tower’s rule challenges long-held notions that most living organisms prefer stability over instability because stability requires less energy and fewer resources. For instance, hexagons appear frequently in nature — think honeycombs and insect eyes — because they are stable and require the least amount of material to cover a surface. 

Tower centers his rule on instability, specifically a concept called “selectively advantageous instability,” or SAI, in which some volatility in biological components, such as proteins and genetic material, provides an advantage to cells.

Tower believes SAI is a fundamental part of biology. “Even the simplest cells contain proteases and nucleases and regularly degrade and replace their proteins and RNAs, indicating that SAI is essential for life,” he explains.

He says SAI also plays a key role in evolution.

As cells go about their business, building and degrading various unstable components, he explains, they will exist in one of two states — one state with an unstable component present and one state in which the unstable component is absent. 

Natural selection may act differently on the two cell states. “This can favor the maintenance of both a normal gene and a gene mutation in the same cell population, if the normal gene is favorable in one cell state and the gene mutation is favorable in the other cell state,” he says. Allowing this genetic diversity can make cells and organisms more adaptable.

SAI may be at the root of aging — and more

Selectively advantageous instability may also contribute to aging. Creating and then replacing the unstable component within cells comes at the cost of materials and energy. Breaking it down may also require additional energy.

Also, since SAI sets up two potential states for a cell, allowing normal and mutated genes to co-exist, if the mutated gene is harmful, this may contribute to aging, Tower says.

In addition to evolution and aging, SAI has other far-reaching implications.

“Science has been fascinated lately with concepts such as chaos theory, criticality, Turing patterns and ‘cellular consciousness,’ says Tower. “Research in the field suggests that SAI plays an important role in producing each of these phenomena.” 

Because of its apparent ubiquity in biology and its far-reaching implications, SAI may be the newest rule of biology, he says.

END


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging 2 A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging 3

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Scripps Research chemists develop new method for making gamma chiral centers on simple carboxylic acids

Scripps Research chemists develop new method for making gamma chiral centers on simple carboxylic acids
2024-05-17
LA JOLLA, CA—Scripps Research chemists have accomplished a long elusive feat in synthetic chemistry: the invention of a broadly useful method for constructing “gamma chiral centers” on simple starting compounds called carboxylic acids. The method, published on May 16, 2024 in Science, significantly extends the ability of chemists to build and modify complex pharmaceutical molecules and other valuable chemical products. The term chiral refers to a type of asymmetry that allows some chemical compounds to exist in left-handed and right-handed forms. Often, only one of these forms has the ...

2024 SIAM Annual Meeting (AN24) with online component including SIAM Conference on Discrete Mathematics (DM24) and the SIAM Conference on Applied Mathematics in Education (ED24)

2024-05-16
The SIAM Annual Meeting provides a broad view of the state of the art in applied mathematics, computational and data science, and their applications through invited presentations, prize lectures, minitutorials, minisymposia, contributed presentations, and posters. END ...

Detecting influence campaigns on X with AI and network science

2024-05-16
In the age of generative-AI and large language models (LLMs), massive amounts of inauthentic content can be rapidly broadcasted on social media platforms. As a result, malicious actors are becoming more sophisticated, hijacking hashtags, artificially amplifying misleading content, and mass resharing propaganda.  These actions are often orchestrated by state-sponsored information operations (IOs), which attempt to sway public opinion during major geopolitical events such as the US elections, the Covid-19 pandemic, and more.  Combating ...

Offering both colonoscopy and at-home tests doubled colorectal cancer screening

2024-05-16
The rate of colorectal cancer screenings more than doubled when patients were given a choice between which type of screening they wanted—a take-home kit or colonoscopy—compared to those who were only offered the colonoscopy, according to new research led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Facilitated through a community health center in which about half of patients had Medicaid insurance, the study—published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology—provides insights about how to boost screenings among groups ...

A powerful tool speeds success in achieving highly efficient thermoelectric materials

A powerful tool speeds success in achieving highly efficient thermoelectric materials
2024-05-16
HOUSTON, May 16, 2024 – Thermoelectric materials could play an important role in the clean energy transition, as they can produce electricity from sources of heat that would otherwise go to waste without generating additional greenhouse gases or requiring large up-front investment. But their promise has been slowed by the fact that most current thermoelectric materials don’t efficiently produce enough power to be useful for many practical applications. The search for new, more efficient materials involving complex chemical ...

Oropharyngeal cancer staging health record extraction using AI

2024-05-16
About The Study: The results of this study suggest that artificial intelligence may be associated with enhanced patient care and oncological decision-making in patients with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma through detection of localized versus advanced cancer stages. Further model refinement and external validation with electronic health records at different institutions are necessary to improve algorithm accuracy and clinical applicability. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Antoine Eskander, M.D., email antoine.eskander@mail.utoronto.ca. To access the ...

Airborne technology developed at USC brings new hope to map shallow aquifers in Earth’s most arid deserts

2024-05-16
Water shortages are expanding across the Earth. This is particularly acute in desert areas of the Middle East that are subject to both drought and extreme conditions such as flooding. As a result of these uncertainties, there is an increasing reliance on shallow aquifers to mitigate these shortages. However, the characteristics of these aquifers remain poorly understood due to the reliance on sporadic well logs for their management. To address this challenge a team of researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering along with collaborators ...

Mount Sinai experts to present new research on preeclampsia, preterm birth, doula care and more at the 2024 ACOG Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting

2024-05-16
Women’s health experts from the Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will present new research at the 2024 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting in San Francisco from May 17–19. Please let me know if you would like to coordinate an interview about their forthcoming presentations. Mount Sinai obstetricians and gynecologists are also available to comment on breaking news and other trending topics on prenatal care and women’s ...

Normothermic perfusion system extends life of organs waiting for transplant

2024-05-16
In the United States, about 30-40% of donor hearts aren't considered for transplant due to inadequate function in the donor.  This creates a drop in the number of donated hearts that are available to be matched with someone who needs a heart transplant. A team at University of Michigan Health led by Alvaro Rojas-Pena, M.D., a research investigator with the section of transplantation surgery at University of Michigan Health has spent the past eight years looking at better ways to transport organs for donation, specifically hearts, to improve the number of organs ...

Study: Large language models can’t effectively recognize users’ motivation, but can support behavior change for those ready to act

Study: Large language models can’t effectively recognize users’ motivation, but can support behavior change for those ready to act
2024-05-16
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Large language model-based chatbots have the potential to promote healthy changes in behavior. But researchers from the ACTION Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have found that the artificial intelligence tools don’t effectively recognize certain motivational states of users and therefore don’t provide them with appropriate information. Michelle Bak, a doctoral student in information sciences, and information sciences professor Jessie Chin reported their research in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. Large language model-based chatbots — also known as generative conversational agents ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A breakthrough in green hydrogen peroxide production: KIST develops carbon catalyst utilizing airborne oxygen

Travellers: beware of Oropouche virus. Is it the next Zika?

No increased death rates, admission differences for people experiencing homelessness with severe COVID-19

Optimizing public placement of naloxone kits to save lives

Burden of cardiovascular disease caused by extreme heat in Australia to more than double by 2050

Who does Darth Vader vote for? Not the same party as Harry Potter

Ground breaking advances in construction robotics in extreme environments unveiled in review

New strategies to enhance chiral optical signals unveiled

Cambridge research uncovers powerful virtual reality treatment for speech anxiety

2025 Gut Microbiota for Health World Summit to spotlight groundbreaking research

International survey finds that support for climate interventions is tied to being hopeful and worried about climate change

Cambridge scientist launches free VR platform that eliminates the fear of public speaking

Open-Source AI matches top proprietary model in solving tough medical cases

Good fences make good neighbors (with carnivores)

NRG Oncology trial supports radiotherapy alone following radical hysterectomy should remain the standard of care for early-stage, intermediate-risk cervical cancer

Introducing our new cohort of AGA Future Leaders

Sharks are dying at alarming rates, mostly due to fishing. Retention bans may help

Engineering excellence: Engineers with ONR ties elected to renowned scientific academy

New CRISPR-based diagnostic test detects pathogens in blood without amplification

Immunotherapy may boost KRAS-targeted therapy in pancreatic cancer

Growing solar: Optimizing agrivoltaic systems for crops and clean energy

Scientists discover how to reactivate cancer’s molecular “kill switch”

YouTube influencers: gaming’s best friend or worst enemy?

uOttawa scientists use light to unlock secret of atoms

NJIT mathematician to help map Earth's last frontier with Navy grant

NASA atmospheric wave-studying mission releases data from first 3,000 orbits

‘Microlightning’ in water droplets may have sparked life on Earth

Smoke from wildland-urban interface fires more deadly than remote wildfires

What’s your body really worth? New AI model reveals your true biological age from 5 drops of blood

Protein accidentally lassos itself, helping explain unusual refolding behavior

[Press-News.org] A new ‘rule of biology’ may have come to light, expanding insight into evolution and aging
Living things usually prefer stability to conserve energy and resources, but instability might also play a vital role, says USC Dornsife molecular biologist John Tower.