Related papers: The C-value enigma and timing of the Cambrian expl…
One longstanding mystery in bio-evolution since Darwin's time is the origin of the Cambrian explosion that happened around 540 million years ago (Mya), where an extremely rapid increase of species occurred. Here we suggest that a nearby GRB…
The emergence of complex patterns of organization close to the Cambrian boundary is known to have happened over a (geologically) short period of time. It involved the rapid diversification of body plans and stands as one of the major…
After a thorough research on the circumstantial changes and the great evolution of life in the Cambrian period, the author propounds such a hypothesis: During the Late Precambrian, about 500-600Ma, a celestial body impacted the Earth. The…
Darwin introduced the concept of the "living fossil" to describe species belonging to lineages that have experienced little evolutionary change, and suggested that species in more slowly evolving lineages are more prone to extinction (1).…
We discuss some the effects of local gamma-ray bursts on the earth's atmosphere. A rough calculation of the fraction of ozone destruction by catalytic $NO_{x}$ cycles is given, which in turn serves to argue how the large flux of gammas from…
Evaluating the timing and trajectory of sensory system innovations is crucial for understanding the increase in phylogenetic, behavioural, and ecological diversity during the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition. Elucidation of sensory adaptations…
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) provide complementary probes of the early evolution of the Universe and of its particle content. Neutrinos play important roles in both cases, influencing the…
Understanding the co-evolution of complex life with Earth's geology is an enduring challenge. The rock record evidences remarkable correlations between changes in biology and the wider Earth system, yet cause and effect remain unclear.…
We discovered a dynamic phase transition induced by sexual reproduction. The dynamics is a pure Darwinian rule with both fundamental ingredients to drive evolution: 1) random mutations and crossings which act in the sense of increasing the…
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) provide complementary probes of the early evolution of the Universe and of its particle content. Neutrinos play important roles in both cases, influencing the…
The question of what determines genetic diversity both between and within species has long remained unsolved by the modern evolutionary theory (MET). However, it has not deterred researchers from producing interpretations of genetic…
The classification of life should be based upon the fundamental mechanism in the evolution of life. We found that the global relationships among species should be circular phylogeny, which is quite different from the common sense based upon…
The observed late-time acceleration of the Universe may be the result of unknown physical processes involving either modifications of gravitation theory or the existence of new fields in high energy physics. In the former case, such…
The causes of major and rapid transitions observed in biological macroevolution as well as in the evolution of social systems are a subject of much debate. Here we identify the proximate causes of crashes and recoveries that arise…
Genome replication, a key process for a cell, relies on stochastic initiation by replication origins, causing a variability of replication timing from cell to cell. While stochastic models of eukaryotic replication are widely available, the…
Across metazoans, early embryos exhibit a strikingly conserved slowing down of their cell duplication speed, despite widely varying developmental paces and underlying molecular mechanisms. Here we show that this common behavior arises…
Natural selection explains how life has evolved over millions of years from more primitive forms. The speed at which this happens, however, has sometimes defied formal explanations when based on random (uniformly distributed) mutations.…
A key pillar of modern cosmology, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) offers a probe of the particle content and expansion rate of the Universe a mere few minutes after the beginning. When compared with the BBN predictions, the observationally…
Interest in non-standard recombination scenarios has been spurred by recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) results from BOOMERANG and MAXIMA, which show an unexpectedly low second acoustic peak, resulting in a best-fit baryon density…
The natural evolution of life seems to proceed through steps characterized by phases of relatively rapid changes, followed by longer, more stable periods. In the light of the string-theory derived physical scenario proposed in [1], we…