Related papers: Across and beyond the cell are peptide strings
This is an invited contribution to the Special Issue of "Foundations of Physics" titled "Forty Years Of String Theory: Reflecting On the Foundations". I have been asked to assess string theory as an outsider, and to compare it with the…
The process of morphogenesis, which can be defined as an evolution of the form of an organism, is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the life sciences. It is clear, that gene expression patterns cannot explain the development of the…
A vast array of transformative technologies developed over the past decade has enabled measurement and perturbation at ever increasing scale, yet our understanding of many systems remains limited by experimental capacity. Overcoming this…
Hierarchy seems to pervade complexity in both living and artificial systems. Despite its relevance, no general theory that captures all features of hierarchy and its origins has been proposed yet. Here we present a formal approach resulting…
Cardiac myocytes are the fundamental cells composing the heart muscle. The propagation of electric signals and chemical quantities through them is responsible for their nonlinear contraction and dilatation. In this study, a theoretical…
Proteins are vital biological molecules found in every living organism, and their function is determined by what shape they fold into. Peptides are essentially subsets of proteins, and therefore ideal as model systems for protein folding.…
Vascular and non-vascular cells often form an interconnected network in vitro, similar to the early vascular bed of warm blooded embryos. Our time-lapse recordings show that the network forms by extending sprouts, i.e., multicellular linear…
The process of programmed cell death, namely apoptosis, is a natural mechanism that regulates healthy tissue, multicellular structures, and homeostasis. An improved understanding of apoptosis can significantly enhance our knowledge of…
Gas transport across cell membrane is a very important process in biochemistry which is essential for many crucial tasks, including cell respiration pH regulation in the cell. In the late 1990's, the suggestion that gasses are transported…
The origin of nonlinear responses in cells has been suggested to be crucial for various cell functions including the propagation of the nervous impulse. In physics nonlinear behavior often originates from phase transitions. Evidence for…
Networks are convenient mathematical models to represent the structure of complex systems, from cells to societies. In the past decade, multilayer network science -- the branch of the field dealing with units interacting in multiple…
The claim that life is an emergent phenomenon exhibiting novel properties and principles is often criticized for being in conflict with causal closure at the microscopic level. I argue that advances in cosmological theory suggesting an…
From the humble beginnings of particle physics to groundbreaking discoveries, the journey of particle physics has revolutionized our understanding of the universe. The progression of particle physics, begin from the discovery of new…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Active nematic models explain the topological defects and flow patterns observed in epithelial tissues, but the nature of active stress-whether it is extensile or contractile, a key parameter of the theory-is not well established…
Epigenetic Tracking is a mathematical model of biological cells, originally conceived to study embryonic development. Computer simulations proved the capacity of the model to generate complex 3-dimensional cellular structures, and the…
Signaling pathways are responsible for the regulation of cell processes, such as monitoring the external environment, transmitting information across membranes, and making cell fate decisions. Given the increasing amount of biological data…
Biologists have long sought a way to explain how statistical properties of genetic sequences emerged and are maintained through evolution. On the one hand, non-random structures at different scales indicate a complex genome organisation. On…
Although random cell complexes occur throughout the physical sciences, there does not appear to be a standard way to quantify their statistical similarities and differences. The various proposals in the literature are usually motivated by…
String theory is accused by some of its critics to be a purely abstract mathematical discipline, having lost the contact to the simple yet deeply rooted questions which physics provided until the beginning of this century. We argue that, in…