At the onset of bio-complexity: microscopic devils, molecular bio-motors, and computing cells

Nano scale motility, that is the hallmark of life, emerges when coordinated movements take over from molecular chaos. In biological world, at nanometric size, significant witnesses are present, starting from cellular traffic flows till the organized behaviors of complex molecular machines. Although their origins and evolution are still the objects of investigations, the understanding of physico-chemical mechanisms capable of extracting coordinated movements from the stochastic energy fluctuations of the surrounding liquid is improving. By accounting for the contribution due to the free energy supplied from the hydrolysis of ATP, information theory allows some meaningful in-deepments on processes and mechanisms that contribute to the increase in the complexity present in biological processes. The transfer of some engineering concepts to the biological cells shaped through a set of interacting components with functional, as well as structural relationships, evidences the presence of set-up similar to the ones conventional computers, in which the electronic circuits are able to manage logical expressions. The implications on the emergent synthetic biology are discussed, as well.