Theory 29/Efficiency vs Resilience/Metabolism
Efficient Cells Run Hot
The claim
Metabolic efficiency trades against heat tolerance, so a cell that extracts more ATP per substrate produces more heat per unit work and tolerates less warming.
01Mechanism
Efficiency is the fraction of energy captured as ATP; the remainder becomes heat, so higher efficiency per unit work can mean higher heat load per unit time at high flux.
02Prediction
Heat tolerance should fall as metabolic efficiency rises.
03Refutation
The two uncorrelated would remove the trade-off.