Thank you for clarifying the definition you're using for "proportionately more".
Two points come to mind:
"Many recent developments that produced a lot of value, like radio, computing, and the Internet, didn't do it by using proportionally more atoms."
There are vacuum electronic tube production facilities (late 18th century onward), many billion dollar semiconductor factories (late 1970s onward), and piles and piles of electronic waste that say this isn't true.
CICO is properly applied to a system defined by a boundary. The complete equation is:
inputs - outputs = accumulation + depletion (adjust signs as needed)
where these parameters are as compared to the system boundary.
Inputs for a mammal system are food, water, oxygen, and heat. Outputs are heat, sweat, urine, feces and CO2. Accumulation/depletion within the system would include muscle, fat, plasma, bone, organs, and microbial ecosystem.
Energy inputs to the system can go to the primary host body (e.g. fat accumulation) or to the microbes' ecosystem or o...
Thank you for taking the time to explore this domain.
There is at least one additional aspect of lipid structure consumption that is not part of your list of mechanisms. Lipid shape affects the shape of membranes. This paper illustrates the concept (tldr: Figures 3 & 4):
https://dasher.wustl.edu/bio5357/readings/naturerevmcb-19-281-18.pdf "Understanding the diversity
of membrane lipid composition"
Figure 3 in the following review paper shows a table of different physical properties for the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), Golgi apparatus, and plasma membrane (P... (read more)