This one uses an analogy to the origin of smartphones. No kidding. Smartphones illuminate how animals came into existence.
It’s “A smartphone analogy to explore the origin of animals,” in The EMBO Journal (open access).* See, for instance, page 8:
We hypothesize that the evolutionary transition from LUAA to FACA may have followed a similar principle: rather than requiring many new components, it likely involved the development of an “Animal Operating System”. We define this Animal “OS” not as a single component, but as the hierarchical integration of multiple pre-existing systems into a cohesive developmental program. This includes the core Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) that define cell identity (the “kernel”), the cell–cell signaling and adhesion pathways that manage inputs and outputs, and the mechanisms that control cell number and stoichiometry (the “resource management”). The later evolution of more complex gene regulatory networks and chromatin architecture in bilaterians can be seen as a major “OS upgrade”, enabling more sophisticated body plans. It is worth noting that, despite their substrate differences, there are remarkable similarities between the network organization of gene regulatory networks and the architecture of operating systems. [Emphasis added.]
If evolutionary biologists keep going in this direction, Charles Darwin, Ronald Fisher, George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and T. H. Dobzhansky are going to climb out of their graves, brush off the dirt, and haunt university biology departments like brain-eating zombies. Enough is enough, already!
Yet, for all that, it’s a fun and very interesting article. Just not really evolutionary theory in any normal sense of the word. For instance, using Adobe Acrobat, we did a word search on “mutation.” Zero hits. Only one hit for “natural selection,” but it was in the references (as the partial title of a cited article, actually on the limits of selection).
* EMBO stands for “European Molecular Biology Organization,” only very discreetly indicated at the bottom of the page. Apparently, you’re just supposed to know that. Or research it on your smartphone.