Related papers: Borges Dilemma, Fundamental Laws, and Systems Biol…
Biological approximations, which are universal for diverse species, are well known. With no other experimental data, their invariance to transformations from one species to another yields exact conservation (with respect to biological…
Biological systems are generally complicated and/or complex. In the former approach, one sets up a model with a large number of parameters to describe the system in detail. The latter approach focuses on understanding the universal aspects…
Biology is data-rich, and it is equally rich in concepts and hypotheses. Part of trying to understand biological processes and systems is therefore to confront our ideas and hypotheses with data using statistical methods to determine the…
We describe the fundamental difference between the nature of problems in traditional physics and that of many problems arising today in systems biology and other complex settings. The difference hinges on the much larger number of a priori…
Niels Bohr's arguments indicating the non-applicability of quantum methodology to the study of the ultimate details of life given in his book "Atomic physics and human knowledge" conflict with the commonly held opposite view. The bases for…
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…
Well known biological approximations are universal, i.e. invariant to transformations from one species to another. With no other experimental data, such invariance yields exact conservation (with respect to biological diversity and…
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…
The standard assumptions that underlie many conceptual and quantitative frameworks do not hold for many complex physical, biological, and social systems. Complex systems science clarifies when and why such assumptions fail and provides…
The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? We discuss…
This paper suggests that a universal solution to the Fermi paradox exists and can be derived directly from the definition of life and/or intelligence, therefore eliminating the need for any questionable assumptions and even for the…
Advances in biology have mostly relied on theories that were subsequently revised, expanded or eventually refuted using experimental and other means. Theoretical biology used to primarily provide a basis to rationally examine the frameworks…
Research in quantitative evolutionary genomics and systems biology led to the discovery of several universal regularities connecting genomic and molecular phenomic variables. These universals include the log-normal distribution of the…
Biological data in digital form has become a, if not the, driving force behind innovations in biology, medicine, and the environment. No study and no model would be complete without access to digital data (including text) collected by…
Well protected human and laboratory animal populations with abundant resources are evolutionary unprecedented. Physical approach, which takes advantage of their extensively quantified mortality, establishes that its dominant fraction yields…
A celebrated and controversial hypothesis conjectures that some biological systems --parts, aspects, or groups of them-- may extract important functional benefits from operating at the edge of instability, halfway between order and…
Species coexistence is one of the central themes in modern ecology. Coexistence is a prerequisite of biological diversity. However, the question arises how biodiversity can be reconciled with the statement of competition theory, which…
Mortality is an instrument of natural selection. Evolutionary motivated theories imply its irreversibility and life history dependence. This is inconsistent with mortality data for protected populations. Accurate analysis yields mortality…
The full-blown multiverse hypothesis, chaosogenesis, is refuted on the grounds of the large scale and high precision of the already discovered laws of nature. A selection principle is required not only to explain the possibility of life and…
Theoretical analysis proves that human survivability is dominated by an unusual physical, rather than biological, mechanism, which yields an exact law. The law agrees with all experimental data, but, contrary to existing theories, it is the…