ENST: Cell Machines and Planetary Habitability

This article by the CEH Editor
was published at Evolution News
on June 16, 2017

Cell Machines Maintain the Planet for Life
Evolution News and Science Today
June 16, 2017
by David Coppedge

Count the mentions of the word “machines” in this news from the University of Liverpool:

• “Nanotechnology reveals hidden depths of bacterial ‘machines’…”
• “New research from the University of Liverpool, published in the journal Nanoscale, has probed the structure and material prboperties of protein machines in bacteria, which have the capacity to convert carbon dioxide into sugar through photosynthesis.”
• “Unique internal ‘machines’ in cyanobacteria, called carboxysomes, allow the organisms to convert carbon dioxide to sugar and provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment.”
• “So far, little is known about how these ‘machines’ are constructed and maintain their organisation to perform carbon fixation activity.”
• “They then used electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to visualise the morphology and internal protein organization of these bacterial machines.”
• “‘We’re now just starting to understand how these bacterial machines are built and work in nature. Our long-term vision is to harness the knowledge to make further steps towards better design and engineering of bio-inspired machines,’ added Dr Liu. ‘The knowledge and techniques can be extended to other biological machines.’” [Emphasis added.]

That’s a lot of machine language for one short article! And it doesn’t even include related words like mechanical, nanotechnology, and structure. They’re talking about an amazing little organelle in cyanobacteria (once considered among the most primitive of cells) called the carboxysome — one of those tiny wonders most people don’t know about but depend on for life….

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