Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39854238›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2025

Life sets off a cascade of machines.

Tsvi Tlusty, Albert Libchaber

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Complexity myths and the misappropriation of evolutionary theory.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Tsvi TlustyDepartment of Physics, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan 44919, Korea.ORCID 0000-0002-9662-3725
Albert LibchaberCenter for Physics and Biology, Rockefeller University, New York, NY 10065.ORCID 0009-0004-7874-9326

Funding

Institute for Basic Science (IBS) IBSR020- D1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Life is invasive, occupying all physically accessible scales, stretching between almost nothing (protons, electrons, and photons) and almost everything (the whole biosphere). Motivated by seventeenth-century insights into this infinity, this paper proposes a language to discuss life as an infinite double cascade of machines making machines. Using this simplified language, we first discuss the micro-cascade proposed by Leibniz, which describes how the self-reproducing machine of the cell is built of smaller submachines down to the atomic scale. In the other direction, we propose that a macro-cascade builds from cells larger, organizational machines, up to the scale of the biosphere. The two cascades meet at the critical point of 10

Indexed as

cascade of machinesLeibnizself-reproducing machinessurvivalvon Neumann

Identifiers

PMID39854238
PMCPMC11789027

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.