Intuiting biology (Part 1: Order and chaos in the crowded cell)

Cells are crowded spaces packed with biomolecules colliding and interacting with one another. Despite this chaotic environment, biologists routinely describe intracellular functions using the clean mathematical language of networks. In this post I will attempt to reconcile these two seemingly contradictory perspectives of the cell. This post will serve as a first part in a series of blog posts I…