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Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

science.org

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Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#21

Post by tantalor »

londons_explore wrote: post #7

'integrating' is a complex way of saying 'stuff leaks across a boundary slowly, and eventually when enough has leaked it triggers the spore to wake up'

Article mentions "short nutrient pulses result in step-like changes" which implies a discrete event, not like continuous leakage.

I wonder about distribution of the sizes of those pulses.

If all the pulses are basically the same size, then a trigger over the total is indistinguishable from "counting" the number of pulses.

Otherwise, yeah it's not really like "counting" at all.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#22

Post by threatofrain »

blendergeek wrote: post #16

Please change the headline to "Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate environmental signals" per Hacker News guidelines. From the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

That's past 80 characters, and I don't really think this is an interesting place to enforce the rules here — did your instincts tell you that HN readers are about to be bait-and-switched by the editorialized title?

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#23

Post by [deleted] »

taeric wrote: post #9
londons_explore wrote: post #7

'integrating' is a complex way of saying 'stuff leaks across a boundary slowly, and eventually when enough has leaked it triggers the spore to wake up'

Yeah, this feels dangerously close to claiming a woman's body is counting the months/days before they deliver a baby. And, to be fair, I think the actual research was more about modeling how it works. Not claiming that they count, per se. That is, just because you can model something mathematically, does not mean that the thing being modeled is the same as doing the math. Falling is not the same as calculating an equ…

[deleted]

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#24

Post by samatman »

tantalor wrote: post #21
londons_explore wrote: post #7

'integrating' is a complex way of saying 'stuff leaks across a boundary slowly, and eventually when enough has leaked it triggers the spore to wake up'

Article mentions "short nutrient pulses result in step-like changes" which implies a discrete event, not like continuous leakage. I wonder about distribution of the sizes of those pulses. If all the pulses are basically the same size, then a trigger over the total is indistinguishable from "counting" the number of pulses. Otherwise, yeah it's not really like "counting" at all.

I'm pretty sure (having read the same two paragraphs as anyone else) that the pulses were caused artificially in the experiment. The pulses let them demonstrate that the spores can passively soak up potassium to a certain threshold, then activate. The interesting part being that the process doesn't cost the spore energy.

This is more like measurement than counting, imho. Something of an osmotic thermostat, ionostat perhaps.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#25

Post by kingkawn »

blendergeek wrote: post #16

Please change the headline to "Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate environmental signals" per Hacker News guidelines. From the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

So too us and our actions are decisions.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#26

Post by danuker »

taeric wrote: post #20
uoaei wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is, just because you can model something mathematically, does not mean that the thing being modeled is the same as doing the math. Falling is not the same as calculating an equation, as it were. This feels like a false dichotomy. The two calculations demonstrate essentially the same function, but one is performed using physical dynamics (the accumulation of something on one side of a boundary) implemented in a…

I wanted to say "but one isn't a calculation, per se. It is a physical process that can be modeled as a calculation." That said, I don't think I get the point you are driving to. Saying I have 1 apple and you give me another, is very akin to 1 + 1 = 2. Yet, calculating 1 + 1 = 2 in a computer is not "the same" as getting another apple in person. (And that is ignoring all of the data that is thrown away by "1 apple."…

Your comment made me realize a chemical reaction is an analog computer computing every parameter of the chemical reaction at once.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#27

Post by KirillPanov »

threatofrain wrote: post #22
blendergeek wrote: post #16

Please change the headline to "Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate environmental signals" per Hacker News guidelines. From the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

That's past 80 characters, and I don't really think this is an interesting place to enforce the rules here — did your instincts tell you that HN readers are about to be bait-and-switched by the editorialized title?

Counting is very different from integrating.

Lots of stuff in biology integrates continuous signals. Discrete counting of discrete events is quite rare.

In many senses you can compute with things that count discretely: Peano Arithmetic is undecidable. Yet unbounded dense linear orders (i.e. the theory of the rationals) are decidable, so you can't embed "program X halts" into them.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#28

Post by gilded-lilly »

danuker wrote: post #26
taeric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to say "but one isn't a calculation, per se. It is a physical process that can be modeled as a calculation." That said, I don't think I get the point you are driving to. Saying I have 1 apple and you give me another, is very akin to 1 + 1 = 2. Yet, calculating 1 + 1 = 2 in a computer is not "the same" as getting another apple in person. (And that is ignoring all of the data that is thrown away by "1 apple."…

Your comment made me realize a chemical reaction is an analog computer computing every parameter of the chemical reaction at once.

Your comment made me realize the universe is a quantum computer calculating the position of every sub atomic particle in real time.

Re: Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate enviro signals

#29

Post by anothernewdude »

blendergeek wrote: post #16

Please change the headline to "Electrochemical potential enables dormant spores to integrate environmental signals" per Hacker News guidelines. From the guidelines: > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.

That title is fucked. I prefer the English one.
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