A strong case can be made that the cell, the most basic unit of life, is the most energy efficient thing on Earth. They store energy as ATP (adenosine triphosphate):
He compares the cell to human inventions and finds that it is indeed amazingly energy-efficient.
How much energy can ATP store? Biochemists calculate that for every 686 Calories provided by glucose, ATP can capture about 262 Calories, for an energy efficiency of 38%. According to the popular textbook Human Anatomy & Physiology by Marieb and Hoehn, cells are “far more efficient than any man-made machines, which capture only 10-30% of the energy available to them.”Alex Berezow, “The Cell: Most Energy Efficient Thing On Earth?” at American Council on Science and health
Before you go: In addition to DNA, our cells have an instruction language written in sugar Of course it all just tumbled into existence and “natural selection” somehow organized everything. As if.
Cells find optimal solutions. Not just good ones.
Researchers build “public library” to help understand photosynthesis
Wait. “The part of the plant responsible for photosynthesis is like a complex machine made up of many parts, … ” And machines just happen all by themselves, right? There is no information load to account for; it just evolved by natural selection acting on random mutation the way your Android did! Follow UD News at Twitter!
In Nature: Cells have “secret conversations” We say this a lot: That’s a lot of information to have simply come into being by natural selection acting on random mutation (Darwinism). It’s getting not only ridiculous but obviously ridiculous.
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Researchers: Helpful gut microbes send messages to their hosts If the strategy is clearly identified, they should look for non-helpful microbes that have found a way to copy it (horizontal gene transfer?)
Cells and proteins use sugars to talk to one another Cells are like Neanderthal man. They get smarter every time we run into them. And just think, it all just tumbled into existence by natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism) too…
Researchers: First animal cell was not simple; it could “transdifferentiate” From the paper: “… these analyses offer no support for the homology of sponge choanocytes and choanoflagellates, nor for the view that the first multicellular animals were simple balls of cells with limited capacity to differentiate.”
“Interspecies communication” strategy between gut bacteria and mammalian hosts’ genes described
Researchers: Cells Have A Repair Crew That Fixes Local Leaks
Researchers: How The Immune System “Thinks”Follow UD News at Twitter!
Researcher: Mathematics Sheds Light On “Unfathomably Complex” Cellular Thinking
How do cells in the body know where they are supposed to be?
Researchers A Kill Cancer Code Is Embedded in Every Cell
He is misinformed in calculating the energy efficiency found in cells generally and ATP specifically. He stated,,,
So according to him, it is impossible for anything to approach 100% energy efficiency, Yet ATP production itself, contrary to his back of the envelope calculations, is found to be 100% efficient.
His back of the envelope calorie calculation for ATP energy efficiency probably forgot to take into consideration the fact that the calories from glucose are split among several enzymes in the production of ATP:
At the 14:00 minute mark of the following video, Chris Ashcraft, who has a PhD in molecular biology, gives us an overview of the Citric Acid Cycle, which is, after the 10 step Glycolysis Pathway, also involved in ATP production:
He is simply wrong with his back of the envelope calculation that “40% energy efficiency is about as good as anyone (man or nature) can achieve”.
For instance, the bacterial flagellum itself, the mascot molecular machine for Intelligent Design, has a energy conversion efficiency of 100%
Moreover, the efficiency of photosynthesis itself is found to be 100%. The following study found that ‘Certain biological systems living in low light environments have unique protein structures for photosynthesis that use quantum dynamics to convert 100% of absorbed light into electrical charge,,,’
These are not just isolated examples of perfect or nearly perfect energy efficiency. Surprisingly perfect ‘optimization’ is widespread. As the following article states, “In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.”
Supplemental notes:
Moreover, the integrated coding between the DNA, RNA and Proteins of the cell apparently seem to be ingeniously designed along the very stringent guidelines laid out in Landauer’s principle, (by Charles Bennett from IBM of Quantum Teleportation fame), for ‘reversible computation’ in order for the cell to achieve such amazing energy/metabolic efficiency as it does.
The amazing energy efficiency possible with ‘reversible computation’ has been known about since Charles Bennett laid out the principles for such reversible programming in 1973, but as far as I know, due to the extreme level of complexity involved in actually designing such ingenious ‘reversible coding’ in our own computers, has yet to be accomplished in any meaningful way in our computer programs:
Of related note:
Scientists made photosynthesis MUCH more efficient:
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/genetically-engineered-tobacco-does-more-efficient-photosynthesis-65286
PK, like the author in the OP, they are just plain wrong in how they are calculating energy efficiency. They are not measuring actually energy to work conversion efficiency of photosynthesis but are, of all things, calculating efficiency via biomass produced.
“The modified tobacco grew around 40 percent more biomass than unaltered plants.”
Geez, I guess when you can define whatever parameters you want to measure efficiency then I guess you can get whatever answer you want. I certainly don’t think mechanical engineers would be very impressed with their ‘new math’ to derive energy efficiency of photosynthesis;
VIDEO –
Could some biological systems we see today just devolved (ie broken) versions of their original ones?