Related papers: Developmental constraints on vertebrate genome evo…
Evolution is a dynamic process. The two classical forces of evolution are mutation and selection. Assuming small mutation rates, evolution can be predicted based solely on the fitness differences between phenotypes. Predicting an…
Data on the number of Open Reading Frames (ORFs) coded by genomes from the 3 domains of Life show some notable general features including essential differences between the Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes, with the number of ORFs growing linearly…
A number of studies have indicated a potential association between prenatal exposure to radiation and late mental disabilities. This is believed to be due to long-term developmental changes and functional impairment of the central nervous…
Animals often demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt to their environments during their lifetime. They do so partly due to the evolution of morphological and neural structures. These structures capture features of environments shared…
The mean length and the variability of coding sequences for 48 genomes of bacteria and archaea were analyzed. It was found that the plotted data can be described by an angular area. This suggests the followings: a) The variability of a…
A central goal of evolutionary biology is to explain the origins and distribution of diversity across life. Beyond species or genetic diversity, we also observe diversity in the circuits (genetic or otherwise) underlying complex functional…
Several biomarkers are hypothesized to indicate early stages of Alzheimer's disease, well before the cognitive symptoms manifest. Their precise relations to the disease progression, however, is poorly understood. This lack of understanding…
The early fly embryo offers a relatively pure version of the problem of spatial scaling in biological pattern formation. Within three hours, a "blueprint" for the final segmented body plan of the animal is visible in striped patterns of…
Evolutionary dynamics and patterns of molecular evolution are strongly influenced by selection on linked regions of the genome, but our quantitative understanding of these effects remains incomplete. Recent work has focused on predicting…
Information theoretic analysis of large evolved programs produced by running genetic programming for up to a million generations has shown even functions as smooth and well behaved as floating point addition and multiplication loose entropy…
We propose a minimal model to simulate long waiting times followed by evolutionary bursts on rugged landscapes. It combines point and inversions-like mutations as sources of genetic variation. The inversions are intended to simulate one of…
One essential ingredient of evolutionary theory is the concept of fitness as a measure for a species' success in its living conditions. Here, we quantify the effect of environmental fluctuations onto fitness by analytical calculations on a…
Divergence time estimation requires the reconciliation of two major sources of data. These are fossil and/or biogeographic evidence that give estimates of the absolute age of nodes (ancestors) and molecular estimates that give us estimates…
Background: Transposable elements (TEs) have played an important role in the diversification and enrichment of mammalian transcriptomes through various mechanisms such as exonization and intronization (the birth of new exons/introns from…
Previous evolutionary studies demonstrated how evaluating evolving agents in variable environmental conditions enable them to develop solutions that are robust to environmental variation. We demonstrate how the robustness of the agents can…
Embryonic development involves pattern formation characterized by the emergence of spatially localized domains characterized by distinct cell fates resulting from differential gene expression. The boundaries demarcating these domains are…
The complexity of a legged robot's environment or task can inform how specialised its gait must be to ensure success. Evolving specialised robotic gaits demands many evaluations - acceptable for computer simulations, but not for physical…
A new model for evolving Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) is proposed in this paper. The model is based on the Multi Expression Programming (MEP) technique. Each MEP chromosome encodes an evolutionary pattern that is repeatedly used for…
While fields like Artificial Life have made huge strides in quantifying the mechanisms that distinguish living systems from non-living ones, particular mechanisms remain difficult to reproduce in silico. Known as open-endedness, we've been…
Gene expression in cells is stochastic, yet differentiation is robust. We propose a mechanism in which frustrated genes with weakly stable intermediate expression undergo noise-driven switching between basins of attraction, followed by…