At this scale, the cell does not appear to be reacting. It appears to be operating with a framework in which structure, timing, and function are tightly integrated.
If it looks like an engineered system, functions like an engineered system, and is mapped like an engineered system, perhaps it is time to stop pretending it’s a happy accident.
Either reality is given, spoken, and capable of correcting us, or it is an emergent consensus generated by process itself. There is no third alternative.
The discovery of novel circular RNAs in microbial communities is worthy of further investigation, but the ontological leap from genetic novelty to a new domain of life is wholly unjustified by the current evidence.