Page 106 - Visions of the Future Chemistry and Life Science

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The secret of Nature’s microscopic patterns

1
Alan R. Hemsley and Peter C. Gri÷ths 2
1 Department of Earth Sciences, Cardi≈ University, PO Box 914, Cardi≈ CF10
3YE, UK
2 Department of Chemistry, Cardi≈ University, PO Box 912, Cardi≈ CF10
3TB, UK

There is little doubt that the information encoded in the genes of living
things has a great impact on their ultimate form. Dogs, daisies and diatoms
(Figure 6.1(a)) are what they are, largely because they have a set of genes
that, working in combination, code for the production of such things as fur,
flowers or frustules. However, working in tandem with the genetic code is
a diversity of mechanisms which cannot be mapped to any gene, but which
contribute much to the production of structure, architecture and pattern.
The existence of such mechanisms is in part obvious. As explained by
Cohen, the imaginary changeling-like introduction of fly DNA into the egg
of a chicken would produce neither fly nor chicken since fly information
and chicken constructional mechanisms would be largely incompatible. A
fly needs fly construction mechanisms while the constructional apparatus
in a chicken’s egg cannot use fly information to make a chicken.

6.1 The biology of microarchitecture and self-assembly
6.1.1 Message and machinery
Man-made structures and architecture operate under similar constraints.
Three factors come together to produce the final object. There is a design
in the form of a blueprint, the workforce to manipulate the components,
and the components themselves whose physical properties also play a role
in determining the ultimate form. One cannot build a car engine from
rubber or Wellington boots from steel. Classical Greek architecture

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