What about people, hardware (biology) and software (culture)? Our construction starts with an egg cell and a sperm cell that is 83,000 times smaller (in this phase the female is certainly cooperative). The 2 cells double, and double, 47 times (247) resulting in the 140.737 billion (1.4 * 1014) complex collaborating cells! Every day millions of cells die and the same number is re-formed. Usually we notice nothing of this "maintenance" (sometimes a cold, sometimes worse). In time, for example, we get hungry and then we become saturated, or there is a sense of movement. All essential nutrients and processes are thus guaranteed. Our body never gets older than 10 years! In the colomn it is argued that we exist in interaction rather than in content.
MULTIFILE
The synthesis of total cellular proteins in Escherichia coli K12 was studied in batch culture following exposure of cells to low concentrations of monochlorophenol, pentachlorophenol and cadmium chloride. Changes in protein patterns were identified after pulse-chase labelling of proteins with [35S]methionine and subsequent two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE). We demonstrated that besides the induction of some stress proteins, also a transient decrease in the rate of synthesis of other proteins occurred. Two of these proteins were identified as OmpF and aspartate transcarbamoylase (ATCase). Their transient repression appeared to be a general response to stress elicited by different pollutants and may therefore be used as a general and sensitive early warning system for pollutant stress.
