Beyond Homeostasis: Allocation and Recovery as Fundamental Determinants of Biological Resilience

"Allocation-Recovery Biology reframes biological resilience as a dynamic resource-prioritization process rather than static damage or abundance. It organizes resilience into sensors (GCN2-ATF4, AMPK, etc.), allocators (liver, immune, placenta, microbiome), resource streams (sulfur bulk reserve vs selenium catalytic precision), repair machinery (PRDX3 recovery timing as assay), and recovery kinetics (half-life, temporal debt, second-pulse vulnerability). The framework integrates nutrient sensing, mitochondrial repair, microbiome sulfur metabolism, pregnancy as allocation testbed, yeast as minimal model, toxicant stress (e.g., mercury dual attack), and historical nutritional transitions. It distinguishes energy abundance from repair sufficiency and proposes that many fluctuating, relapsing, and age-related conditions may reflect incomplete recovery. Testable predictions and falsification criteria are provided."