A Water Based Approach to Multicellular Differentiation in Animals.

[wellwisher]

In multicellular animals, all cells have the same DNA, with each differentiated cell, using only a distinct fraction of the DNA to define its unique differentiation. The question is how does life maintain these differentiations, and avoid genetic drift due to years of external input into the animal; food sources?

The easiest way to explain his is with the brain and nervous system; smart tissue. The neurons of the brain are unique cells in that they do not replicate once they mature. This occurs at about 2 years old in humans. Conceptually, if this lack of replication could be conducted to differentiated cells, via local nerve endings, near differentiated cells, it could make it harder for them to replicate, thereby limiting the speed of change. It would more about maintenance and less about proliferation and potential genetic drift.

One theory of aging is connected to the telomere region of cells gets cut each time the DNA is duplicated. In the case of the neurons, since they do not replicate, they have the potential to be the oldest cells if they could maintain support; eternal cells. Long life may be connected to the neurons.

The main reason neuron do not replicate is they expend 90% of their metabolic energy, pumping and exchanging ions. Since mother cells need to store food and energy, to make daughter cells, the neurons are unable to store the needed energy for replication, due to its very high constant energy demands. When neuron fire, the ions pumped reverse, and more metabolic energy is used to restore the balance goal. The differentiated cells, connected to the nerve ending, should be seeing pulses of ions, based on the neuron firing and sensory endings, outside their own membranes, and the ion pumps they use for material transport.

Say we get a cut in our skin. This cut will also sever skin cell nerves that connect to the skin cells. The connection to the brain is lost at the zone of the cut. The skin cells start to proliferate, along with new nerve connections, until the counter balance is restored.

In this model, conceptually, some forms of cancer could occur if there is a defect in the local nerve ending near a cell. It will still have a blood supply to replicate, but now lacks the control mechanism from the brain. Cancer does not have or continue to grow nerve endings. In all cases, the impact of the ionic control system is mediated by nerve water equilibrium, and differentiated cell water equilibrium, within the cell's organic configurations.

Someday in the future, we will be able to ping the nervous system, and see dead ends where cancer is more likely to occur. Maybe we can then stimulate nerve restoration.

How this control system, all comes to be, is the connected to embryology; evolving brain-nerve priorities from the fertilized ovum, onward.

 

[wellwisher]

If you look at modern humans, modern humans are very complex in terms of organic biochemistry. A simplified water analysis might appear overly simplified, to explain control of all this complexity. However, if you consider evolution, things started out very simple; simple replicators. Moving forward to cells, would benefit by simple generalized potentials, to lay a working foundation, so new complexity can be added. Cells at all stages of evolution are organized and integrated as complexity is added.

These early foundation layers are still with us and are connected to water. Water and Oil or water and organics are sort of chemical opposites. They impact each other; reduced and oxidized. Water does not change since it is a terminal product of oxygen and hydrogen combustion; very stable. The organics are the opposite, and have endless variety and potential for change, both living and decaying. This change added onto a water foundation, that is fundamentally unchangeable; primary chemically, but flexible/changeable in terms of secondary bonding.

An interesting application of the water side analysis for multicellular differentiation control, are the dinosaurs and their huge size by modern standards. This may have been connected to their smaller brain and nervous system output, into the earliest multicellular control systems. The neurons in the modern brain stop replication, early, branch and can output; fire, enough potential; brain waves, to limit cellular proliferation in the body.

At the time of dinosaurs, there was less brain output potential, into the cellular differentiation control system, so the cells of the body tended to replicate much longer. In this case, the opposite occurred compared to the modern situation. The proliferation output, from the ever growing body, had more of an output affect on the brain. It would causes neurons to replicate, building the brain, so it could better control the proliferation of the growing body. The result was a getting larger and larger and then a gradual shift toward smaller critters.

Consider if the neurons of our modern human brains, all of a sudden, started to replicate as adults; extreme example. The original neuron branches might remain; stay wired, but now two neurons would appear among the original branches from the mother cell. The old memory would be compromised; Movie; Ground Hog Day. At the time of the dinosaurs, they remained more linear in terms of behavior, that was processed in the brain stem and ganglions, with extra neuron output more designed for larger muscular movement and cold blooded reflex.