BLOG POST: \"Telos – on the nature of Nature at Nanoscale.\" A blogpost by Dr. Poomjai Nacaskul, Faculty Member at the Chulalongkorn School of Integrated Innovation

Most of us are cognizant of the fact that in the realm of physical sciences, Physics is the most fundamental of amongst them all. Afterall, it says so in the name. Physics underlines Chemistry, which in turn underlines Biology, and so on. And yet, we can equally say that in the realm of life sciences, nothing interesting happens until a bio- prefix gets appended.

The point I am trying to say is that there is something qualitatively, or dare I say spiritually, different between “whatever can happen” at the physical and/or chemical reality versus “purposeful happenings” that began with the simplest of self-replicating molecular structures. Equation by equation, photosynthesis is just a series of chemical reactions, possibly plus some quantum-mechanical phenomena thrown in for good measureⁱ, and neither chemical reactions nor quantum-mechanical phenomena really carry meaning or purpose on their own. But taken as a whole, the chain of events serves one of the most critical purpose for mostⁱⁱ life forms on earth, that of turning ground-level solar radiation into relatively stable-storable chemical energy, i.e. in the form of sugar.

In my “Emerging Technology for Lifelong Learning” class, I had the privilege of inviting Prof. Louis Hornyakⁱⁱⁱ to give an introductory lecture on nanoscience and nanotechnology, where he took great effort to point out that the critical transition from baseline chemical/physical processes to purposeful life-supporting or life-giving mechanisms — which, from Prof. Hornyak’s perspective, is as close as you can get to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s concept of telos [τέλος]^iv for Nature — all take place at nanoscale, that is, where individual “agents of change” measure somewhere between 1 and 100 nanometers, i.e. between one-millionth and one-ten-thousandth of a millimeter!

Take hemoglobin, for instance. Its chemical formula is C₂₉₅₂H₄₆₆₄N₈₁₂O₈₃₂S₈Fe₄. From this, just about the only thing that you can say is that it’s a huge molecule, perhaps with some kind of 4-fold symmetry, and just about it. But what is important is that this nanoscale^v structure is ideally suited (purposely engineered, i.e. through natural evolution) to serve as a chemical shuttle, a “molecular basket” for carrying exactly four O₂ molecules down a microscopic river of some kind.

And what do cells do with all that hemoglobin-transported oxygen molecules? To make a very long and convoluted story (called “cellular respiration”) short, oxygens are then used in the process of converting glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆ sugar) into what’s called Adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Once again, a nanoscale structure, you cannot tell much from ATP’s chemical formula, which is C₁₀H₁₆N₅O₁₃P₃, nor from its 3D rendering, see [Figure 1] below, but we do know that its telos is to serve as packet of energy that our bodies can use (to contract muscles and so on).

Finally, let’s take as our last example, that of structural coloration in animals^vi, where basic chemical substrates of various kinds (depending on species) are “purposely arranged” into repeating patterns, again at nanoscale, to differentially reflect lights of different frequencies, some absorbed/destructively interfered, others reflected/constructively interfered.

So before we go all ‘nanotech’, first respect the ‘nanosci’. Better yet, even before we embark upon our own journey of (nano-)scientific discoveries, first let’s marvel at Nature at her ‘nanoengineering’ best! In fact, there is a burgeoning subbranch of nanoengineering called ‘biomimetic’ nanoengineering, where we try to literally copy Nature’s homework, i.e. evolved nanoscale solutions (gecko’s feet, and what not), except we cannot replicate Nature’s biological reproduction process, so we settle for laboratory fabrication now and hopefully industrial manufacturing later.

Which gets us back to the “integrated innovation” — the ii part of BAScii. You see, much of nanotechnology innovation is derived from a multi-disciplinary integration of knowledge and knowhow: from material science to mechanical engineering, from biochemistry to quantum physics, from evolutionary adaptation of birds’ feathers and geckos’ feet to game-changing insights and breakthrough in biomimetic nanoengineering. Alas, lest we forget, the essence of multi-disciplinary education is NOT “to know a little of everything”, but to be deeply educated in more than just one art, or one science.

REFERENCES:

(i) In photosynthesis, for example, see:

• O’Reilly, E.J. & Olaya-Castro, A. (2014), “Non-classicality of the molecular vibrations assisting exciton energy transfer at room temperature”, Nature Communications, vol. 5, no. 3012, [https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4012].
• University College London (2014), “Quantum mechanics explains efficiency of photosynthesis”, [www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2014/jan/quantum-mechanics-explains-efficiency-photosynthesis].
• The Royal Society (2016), “Quantum physics of plants”, [www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBps1HAxsxAg].

(ii) Okay, “plenty” of life forms rely on energy not derived from sunlight, but I am not speaking on behalf of them creepie-crawlies thriving around hydrothermal vents, none of whom will get to read this article anyway!

(iii) Adjunct Professor, Asiain Institute of Technology (AIT), Former Director of the AIT Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology (CoEN).

(iv) These days, the word telos is thought of as an archaic reference to the contemporary concept of raison d\'etre. I kind of disagree. By way of etymology (www.etymonline.com), telos highlights the concept of ultimate purpose; whereas, raison d\'etre just sort of says that something is justified in its existence, and we then presume that this must mean that that thing serves some greater purpose.

(v) Huge as they are in terms of packing in thousands of carbon and hydrogen atoms, a single hemoglobin is only about 5 nanometers across: Erickson, Harold P. (2009), “Size and Shape of Protein Molecules at the Nanometer Level Determined by Sedimentation, Gel Filtration, and Electron Microscopy”, Biological Procedures Online, vol. 11, pp. 32–51, [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3055910].

For 3D visualisation (static as well as animated) of hemoglobin, see: Hodis, et al. (2016), “Hemoglobin”, Proteopedia, [https://dx.doi.org/10.14576/32.2583112Hemoglobin], [https://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Hemoglobin].

(vi) See:

• Sun, Bhushan, and Jin (2013), “Structural coloration in nature”, RSC Advances (The Royal Society of Chemistry), vol. 3, pp. 14862-14889, [www.researchgate.net/publication/255772388_Structural_coloration_in_nature].
• Deep Look (2014), “What Gives the Morpho Butterfly Its Magnificent Blue? | Deep Look”, [www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Ts7CsJDpg].
• National Geographic (2019), “Animals Cannot Be Blue | Explorer”, [www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7krvnm2uM].

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