The certainty that natural phenomena and processes could be represented in a physical space ruled by Euclidean geometry was a fundamental epistemological assumption of theoretical creation in classical science. The possibility of a mathematical analysis of the continuum ensured an intuitive, pictorial description of mobile trajectories as studied in dynamics, as well as a precise determination of the effects generated within causal relations. These convictions and assumptions had to be reviewed when the Plank action quantum forced the development of a (...) new physics of atomic systems. Consequences, nevertheless, transcended the scope of Physics and extended to all regions of natural science, including Biology, which had to be built under the conceptual coverage of the nascent mechanics. The present work is a reflection on the philosophical problems posed by the encounter of physics of atoms and chemistry of molecules. (shrink)

This paper approaches the discussion that took place during the second half of the Twentieth Century about the biological significance of the cryptobiotic state. Cryptobiosis has been defined as an evolutionary strategy in which organisms overcome adverse environmental conditions by entering a latency mode considered the third state between life and death. It is a poorly known phenomenon where metabolism, growth, reproduction and senescence are greatly reduced or cease temporarily. Since metabolism is conceived as a defining feature of life, it (...) is argued that Cryptobiosis is a kind of temporal death, because metabolic activity sometimes seems to have stopped completely during the cryptobiotic state. In the following pages we deal with the cryptobiotic phase -as understood in the second half of the last Century-, considering two basic references: a case study, the case of group Tardigrada -small animals between a tenth of a millimeter and one millimeter that can survive in extreme conditions entering different states of latency-; and, secondly, the model around Cryptobiosis as recursive hierarchical metabolism proposed by Yair Neuman. (shrink)