The expected conventional terminology of mechanics here seems awkward, and with good reason. For, if ‘mechanics’ are dramatically changed in ways we do not understand – and I have no doubt that they are – in what sense are they still mechanics? If the ‘mechanical design principles’ are ‘fundamentally new’, and have no ‘known analogue in non-living physical systems’, surely the comparison of organisms with machines (still implicit in the language with which, I quite understand, the researchers must write their paper if they wish to get it published) is self-confuting.
