But at the crucial in-between scale, a big question mark remains: How do the right proteins organize themselves in a sea of fluid swarming with millions of molecules? Do they bump into each other by chance, or does the cell actively organize its fluid space to bring the correct partners together?
The latter appears to be true, according to recent research at the intersection of physics and biology. Over the last decade, cell biologists have come to appreciate what many believe to be a whole new way that cells shape their internal landscape. Like blobs merging, then dispersing, in a lava lamp, or a salad dressing that separates into bubbles of oil and vinegar, groups of proteins can sometimes congeal into distinct droplets. One key way these droplets form is through a process called liquid-liquid phase separation.
I think this process started even before life, just the Boltzmann function separating partitions under surplus energy flow.
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