Patterns of phase compromise in biological cycles
SummaryIt often happens that scalar-valued observables of biological interest are points not on the real line, but on the circle… for example phases of periodic events, and colors. Sometimes one such quantity depends upon two others in a symmetric way, for example, in determining a compromise phase after slime mold plasmodia are fused at different phases of the cell cycle, or in determining the color of a mixture of two colors. In such cases the experimental result cannot depend on the two inputs in an unreservedly continuous way: there must be a point of ambiguity or discontinuity. Experiments involving the cell cycle and glycolysis are examined, in which the discontinuity appears to take two different forms.