Math Biology Seminar: On the Emergence, Replication and Abundance of some Early Cell Structures

This talk presents some coherent though incomplete conjectures for the emergence, replication and abundance of some chemical structures found in each prokaryote, with special emphasis on the trines and the rRNA filaments that constitute a large part of the ribosomes.

In addition to the consideration of the data, two guiding principles for the formulation of these conjectures are Occam's razor, and the idea of uniformitarianism introduced with great success by the geologists of the 19th century. These ideas, aided by the empirical data, suggest that the abundance of the relevant cell structures should be regarded as a clue for their emergence. Also, in this talk, the distinction between the purines and the pyridines is emphasized, while distinguishing each purine (or each pyrimidine) from the others is often ignored; and the conjectures advanced in this talk also suggest some experiments that may justify or falsify their ideas.