  Quantitative topological analogies between the flexibilities of optimized
inorganic glasses, small biological molecules, and proteins suggest that mean
field estimates of internal stress are useful in identifying mechanisms
supporting living materials and their enzymatic products. These analogies bode
well for emerging minimalist flexibility models of protein dynamics.
Application to trehalose, the optimal bioprotective material, leads to a
remarkably simple mechanical model, closely parallel to mechanical effects
observed in sandwich-like proteins.
