Biology and Physical Factors #1: Basics
Certain features are common to many life forms. Why? That is the theme of Raghuveer Parthasarathy’s So Simple a Beginning . There are multiple angles from which one can approach that question, and this book looks at it “through the lens of physics”. In the book, his focus is on 4 principles from physics that recur often in biological organisms: (1) self-assembly; (2) regulatory circuits; (3) predictable randomness; and (4) scaling. ~~ Before diving into all that, he first explains the basic building blocks of life. DNA, as we know, has 2 strands. To read it, we need to first separate the strands. Which leads to the question: Does DNA melt? This may sound like a weird question, so Parthasarathy explains its significance. Ice melts if you raise the temperature above 0° C (a precise temperature). But not everything is like that. Honey doesn’t suddenly change state upon heating - it just becomes progressively less viscous. Now for the relevance to DNA splitting. If...