Symmetry runs in nature. Where mirror images are repeated, like in the right and left halves of elephants or butterflies, or in the repeating patterns of flower petals and starfish arms around a central point, it is present. It is hiding in the structures of small things. Symmetrical forms can be found in nature, like how your heart is off to one side in your chest, or how male fiddler crabs have one enlarged claw.
Why does symmetry prevail? There is no reason for the prevalence of such varied forms of life and their building blocks to be based on natural selection. It seems like a good answer could be found in the field of computer science.
In a paper published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers analyzed thousands of complexes and structures of genes, as well as a model network of molecule that control how genes switch on and off. The instructions to produce symmetry are easier to put in genetic code and follow. Symmetry is the most fundamental application of the adage.
Ard Louis, a physicist at the University of Oxford, said that people often are amazed that evolution can make incredible structures.
It is like we found a new law of nature, according to a co-author.
Dr. Louis, Dr. Camargo and Iain Johnston began their research on symmetry when Dr. Johnston was working on his PhD. The structures that emerged were very biased towards symmetry.
The researchers were surprised at first, but it made sense that it is easier to make simple, repeating patterns with the right software. It's easier to tell someone how to tile a floor than it is to explain how to make a mosaic, says Dr. Johnston, who is now at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Over the next decade, the researchers and their team applied that same concept to basic biological components.
The shapes that appear more often are the simpler ones or the less crazy ones.
The tendency toward symmetry in a way that Darwinian has not been able to can be explained by the idea ofRNA and proteins as little input-output machines that carry out genetic instructions. Nature has a disproportionate number of simpler instruction sets to choose from when it comes to natural selection because it is easier to make instructions for building simple, symmetrical structures. Dr. Camargo said that evolution is like a biased game with loaded dice because of its simplicity.
The researchers believe that the logic extends to bigger, more complex organisms.
There is still a gulf between showing the statistical bias and explaining the symmetry in plants and animals, according to a Biologist who studies symmetry at the University of Debrecen in Hungary.
The work is legit as it gets, according to Lu, who is not involved in the study.
There is a war going on between simplicity and complexity and we live at the edge of it. The simple, symmetrical building blocks help make sense of the randomness in the universe.
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