Related papers: A note on the phases of natural evolution
All living things exhibit adaptations that enable them to survive and reproduce in the natural environment that they inhabit. From a biological standpoint, it has long been understood that adaptation comes from natural selection, whereby…
We present a simple physical model that recapitulates several features of biological evolution, while being based only on thermally-driven attachment and detachment of elementary building blocks. Through its dynamics, this model samples a…
We extend and develop our previous work on the evolution of a network of cosmic strings. The new treatment is based on an analysis of the probability distribution of the end-to-end distance of a randomly chosen segment of left-moving string…
Computer modelling for evolutionary systems consists in: 1) to store in the memory the individual features of each member of a large population; and 2) to update the whole system repeatedly, as time goes by, according to some prescribed…
This chapter begins by outlining a promising, new theoretical framework for the process by which human culture evolves inspired by the views of complexity theorists on the problem of how life began. Elements of culture, like species, evolve…
Evolution by natural selection can be seen an algorithm for generating creative solutions to difficult problems. More precisely, evolution by natural selection is a class of algorithms that share a set of properties. The question we address…
The theory of evolution by natural selection cannot be used to evaluate the truth value of the following proposition: Through evolution, there exists at least one species that can adapt to any one given environment. To address this issue,…
The theory of evolution states that the diversity of species can be explained by descent with modification. Therefore, all living beings are related through a common ancestor. This evolutionary process must have left traces in our molecular…
We introduce a population dynamics model, where individual genomes are represented by bit-strings. Selection is described by death probabilities which depend on these genomes, and new individuals continuously replace the ones that die,…
The presence of phenomena analogous to phase transition in Statistical Mechanics, has been suggested in the evolution of a polygenic trait under stabilizing selection, mutation and genetic drift. By using numerical simulations of a model…
Living species, ranging from bacteria to animals, exist in environmental conditions that exhibit spatial and temporal heterogeneity which requires them to adapt. Risk-spreading through spontaneous phenotypic variations is a known concept in…
Genetic sequences are known to possess non-trivial composition together with symmetries in the frequencies of their components. Recently, it has been shown that symmetry and structure are hierarchically intertwined in DNA, suggesting a…
How diversity is maintained in natural ecosystems is a long-standing question in Theoretical Ecology. By studying a system that combines ecological dynamics, heterogeneous interactions and spatial structure, we uncover a new mechanism for…
The theory of natural selection has two forms. Deductive theory describes how populations change over time. One starts with an initial population and some rules for change. From those assumptions, one calculates the future state of the…
We describe a continuous-time modelling framework for biological population dynamics that accounts for demographic noise. In the spirit of the methodology used by statistical physicists, transitions between the states of the system are…
Life systems are complex and hierarchical, with diverse components at different scales, yet they sustain themselves, grow, and evolve over time. How can a theory of such complex biological states be developed? Here we note that for a…
An analytical model for the evolution of the boundary of the new phase in transformations ruled by nucleation and growth is presented. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous nucleation have been considered: The former includes transformations…
The prediction that (due to the limited amount of hydrogen available as fuel in the Sun) the future duration of our favourable terrestrial environment will be short (compared with the present age of the Earth) has been interpreted as…
We simulate the formation and the evolution of global strings taking into account the expansion of the universe and the concomitant change of the effective potential, that is, the change from the restoration stage of the global {\it…
We suggest to simulate evolution of complex organisms constrained by the sole requirement of robustness in their expression patterns. This scenario is illustrated by evolving discrete logical networks with epigenetic properties. Evidence…