25 papers · ranked by Valyu relevance
Kathryn L. Garner
In synthetic biology, biological cells and processes are dismantled and reassembled to make novel systems that do useful things. Designs are encoded by deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); DNA makes biological (bio-)parts; bioparts are combined to make devices; devices are built into biological systems. Computers are used at…
Eaindra Yee, Murphi T. Williams, Ambika Bhagi-Damodaran
Metals enable numerous physiological processes ranging from respiration to nitrogen fixation. However, the role of metals in biology and biocatalysis is not appreciated by the general public. This lack of knowledge around biological metals can lead to misinformation, especially regarding vaccines and health products.…
Bob Eisenberg
Life occurs in concentrated 'Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology from those in the physical chemistry he knew. Biology is inherited. Information is…
Vitaly Vanchurin, Yuri I. Wolf, Mikhail I. Katsnelson, Eugene V. Koonin
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution that appear to be necessary and sufficient to render a universe observable and show…
Jan Spitzer
Biological complexity cannot be reduced to chemistry and physics Complex living states are: multicomponent, multiphase, ‘crowded’, and re-emergent Living states arise naturally only by the action of cycling physicochemical gradients Bacterial cells can be modeled as viscoelastic capacitors with sol-gel transitions…
Jean‐Louis Sikorav, Alan Braslau, Arach Goldar, Etat Condens + 1 more
'Ura Cnrs'] It is often stated that there are no laws in biology, where everything is contingent and could have been otherwise, being solely the result of historical accidents. Furthermore, the customary introduction of fundamental biological entities such as individual organisms, cells, genes, catalysts and motors…
Bernd Rosslenbroich
Recent developments in evolutionary biology, comparative embryology, and systems biology suggest the necessity of a conceptual shift in the way we think about organisms. It is becoming increasingly evident that molecular and genetic processes are subject to extremely refined regulation and control by the cell and the…
Niall Shanks, Rebecca A Pyles
In this review we consider the new science of Darwinian medicine. While it has often been said that evolutionary theory is the glue that holds the disparate branches of biological inquiry together and gives them direction and purpose, the links to biomedical inquiry have only recently been articulated in a coherent…
Saverio Forestiero
Contemporary scientific knowledge is built on both methodological and epistemological reductionism. The discovery of the limitations of the reductionist paradigm in the mathematical treatment of certain physical phenomena originated the notion of complexity, both as a pattern and process. After clarifying some very…
Plamen L. Simeonov, Jaime Gómez‐Ramírez, Pridi Siregar
Formalization of any kind presumes the prior presence of something concrete and particular. Recognizing this in biology is not easy. Many biological phenomena do not have adequate mathematical representations. This is because living systems are deploying logic and semiotics beyond our conception of mathematics into the…
Alvaro Moreno
One of the central issues of the whole process of biogenesis is how to understand the progressive constitution of a large (in spatial and temporal terms) system that transcends the individual sphere of proto-metabolic organizations and includes collective networks, both synchronous (i.e., proto-ecosystem webs) and…
Tom Froese, Natalya Weber, Ivan Shpurov, Takashi Ikegami
The theory of autopoiesis has been influential in many areas of theoretical biology, especially in the fields of artificial life and origins of life. However, it has not managed to productively connect with mainstream biology, partly for theoretical reasons, but arguably mainly because deriving specific working…
Sepehr Ehsani
Advances in biology, at least over the past two centuries, have mostly relied on theories that were subsequently revised, expanded or eventually refuted using experimental and other means. The field of theoretical biology used to primarily provide a basis, similar to theoretical physics in the physical sciences, to…
Anatolii Shyian
The relation p=1-a between exponents, by which the dependencies of lifespan p and growth intensity a on masses of living organisms are described, is obtained and testified.
William Bialek
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie evidence that theory, in the sense that physicists use the word, is impossible…
Jaime Gómez-Márquez
Background Many traditional biological concepts continue to be debated by biologists, scientists and philosophers of science. The specific objective of this brief reflection is to offer an alternative vision to the definition of life taking as a starting point the traits common to all living beings. Results and…
Authors not listed
Conservation chemistry is an emerging discipline focused on preventing the loss of biodiversity through molecular-level insight and intervention. As the planet enters a mass extinction event – driven by pollution, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, overharvesting, and disease – chemical sciences offer…
Kazeem Olanrewaju, Ashlee N. Ford Versypt
The human physiological system consists of several biological units carefully organized to engage in a bio-physicochemical interaction with complex fluids transporting nutritional and life-supporting species (oxygen and carbon dioxide) needed for the proper functioning of the body. The nutritional species are products…
Seymour Garte, Perry Marshall, Stuart Kauffman, Qi Ouyang
The known laws of nature in the physical sciences are well expressed in the language of mathematics, a fact that caused Eugene Wigner to wonder at the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematical concepts to explain physical phenomena. The biological sciences, in contrast, have resisted the formulation of precise…
Brett N. Augsburger
Scientists have been unable to reach a consensus on why organisms age and why they live as long as they do. Here, a multidisciplinary approach was taken in an attempt to understand the root causes of aging. Nonequilibrium thermodynamics may play a previously unappreciated role in determining longevity by governing the…
Authors not listed
The rise of antibiotic resistance has necessitated the exploration of unconventional sources for novel antimicrobial agents. One emerging novel frontier is "de-extinct" molecules – bioactive peptides, antibiotics, and other bioactive agents reconstructed from ancient or extinct organisms – a groundbreaking convergence…
M. Faggian
Novelty creation is one of the key features that define evolutionary biological systems that exhibit Open-Ended Evolution (OEE). Recently developed theories support the idea that OEE cannot occur in the absence of organisational closure over a characteristic timescale, and that such closure is the ultimate cause of…
Rob Phillips
2019 marked the 75th anniversary of the publication of Erwin Schr¨odinger's "What is Life?", a short book described by Roger Penrose in his preface to a reprint of this classic as "among the most influential scientific writings of the 20th century." In this article, I review the long argument made by Schr¨odinger as he…
Amit Kahana, Lior Segev, Doron Lancet
The origin of life must have involved an unlikely transition from chaotic chemistry to reproducing supramolecular structures. Previous quantitative analyses of reproducing mutually catalytic networks made of simple molecules have led to increasing popularity of this pre-RNA scenario for life’s origin. Here, we…
Chonghuan Zhang, Alexei Lapkin
Computer assisted synthesis planning (CASP) accelerates the development of organic synthesis routes of pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. CASP tools are generally developed on the rules or data of synthetic chemistry which include some enzymatic reactions. However, synthetic biology offers a new degree of…