Sharing an article from American Scientist: The Biology of What Is Not There.
This idea of exploring evolutionary “absences” seems fascinating!
Reading about knotted proteins in the past few years led to me thinking that natural selection only determines whether certain shapes are advantageous but it is “constructionist constraints” (chemical, physical, geometrical, topological) that define the space of possible shapes that evolution can explore.
I think:
- Constraints define the search space.
- Natural selection gives the distribution of actual outcomes.
- Their interplay explains the complexity of biological systems.
The article mentioned knotted proteins and fractal geometry. Here are some of my favorite papers in these topics:
- Knotted proteins: A deeply knotted protein structure and how it might fold, Nature, 2000
- Fractal geometries in nature: Emergence of fractal geometries in the evolution of a metabolic enzyme, Nature, 2024
