Definition of "catalytic" []

• Of, involving, or acting as a catalyst: "Deregulation's catalytic power . . . is still reshaping the banking, communications, and transportation industries” ( Ellyn E. Spragins). (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The term catalytic is loosely used by RNA world enthusiasts who put forth the argument that RNA catalytic properties could have initially substituted for those of proteins."
• "It only treats, by way of analogy, the subject of the ability of RV+NS to rapidly acquire peaks of fitness, and if you extend the analogy (as I have done) to something like protein catalytic rates then you can understand how highly catalytic proteins could evolve and not need to be assembled tornado-in-a-junkyard fashion by random chance."
• "BTW - immigrants (be they illegal or legal) contribute to urban sprawl, increased pollution from cars, increased pollution from power plants, increased usage of water, increased usage of mined metals (in catalytic converters, cell phones, jewelry, etc) and deforastion."