Fabrizio Musacchio

🧬 New paper by Dera et al. in Science Advances proposing a geometric complexity space to map the full morphological diversity of life.

Striking result: life occupies only a tiny, clustered region of all geometrically possible forms, with large heteromorphic regions systematically avoided. The authors argue that this reflects deep physical and developmental constraints shaping evolution.

🌍 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea6945

#Evolution #Complexity #Geometry #Morphology

Jan 11 at 5:31pmMona for iPhone
Show threadkatch wreckJan 11
@FabMusacchio it's almost as if biological adaptation is not generated by random walks isotropically exploring the design space ;)
Show threadZuthalJan 11
@FabMusacchio I admittedly have only skimmed the paper so far, but it also seems interesting that motile animals seem occupy only a small sliver of the total design space. And this kind of intuitively makes sense, motile animals do not benefit from a large external surface-area-to-volume ratio the way that (some) sessile animals or plants do for capturing floating nutrients/groundwater/sunlight.
Show threadCyJan 12
And no definitive proof that four, or six legs are more inherently advantageous.

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Show thread60sRefugeeJan 12
@FabMusacchio What I'm taking away from this is that there are large numbers of shapes that it wouldn't make any sense for life to adopt. Which isn't all that surprising.
Show threadjonny (good kind)Jan 12
@FabMusacchio
Ah the morphospace group, I never get tired of this line of work
Show threadgrauhausenJan 12
@FabMusacchio i don’t understand any of it, but the figures are top notch!
Show threadEl Dado InquietoJan 14
@FabMusacchio I wonder if this can be adapted to roleplaying design systems.