Related papers: Bioengineering the biosphere?
We develop a classification scheme for the evolutionary state of planets based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of their coupled systems, including the presence of a biosphere and the possibility of what we call an agency-dominated…
The climate of Earth is susceptible to catastrophes that could threaten the longevity of human civilization. Geoengineering to reduce incoming solar radiation has been suggested as a way to mediate the warming effects of contemporary…
As oxygen is essential for respiration and metabolism for multicellular organisms on Earth, its presence may be crucial for the development of a complex biosphere on other planets. And because life itself, through photosynthesis,…
The applicability of computational models to the biological world is an active topic of debate. We argue that a useful path forward results from abandoning hard boundaries between categories and adopting an observer-dependent, pragmatic…
A challenge in global change biology is to predict how species will respond to future environmental change and to manage these responses. To make such predictions and management actions robust to novel futures, we need to accurately…
Engineering a sustainable world requires to consider various systems that interact with each other. These systems include ecological systems, economical systems, social systems and tech-nical systems. They are loosely coupled,…
The emerging field of morphogenetic engineering proposes to design complex heterogeneous system focused on the paradigm of emergence. Necessarily at the interface of disciplines, its concepts can be defined through multiple viewpoints. This…
The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies. Species interact not only with each other but indirectly through environmental effects, however…
The Anthropocene is a proposed time subdivision of the earth's history correlated to the strong human perturbation of the ecosystem. Much debate is ongoing about what date should be considered as the start of the Anthropocene, but much less…
AI-enabled synthetic biology has tremendous potential but also significantly increases biorisks and brings about a new set of dual use concerns. The picture is complicated given the vast innovations envisioned to emerge by combining…
For more than 3.5 billion years, life experienced dramatic environmental extremes on Earth. These include shifts from oxygen-less to over-oxygenated atmospheres and cycling between hothouse conditions and global glaciations. Meanwhile, an…
With the increasing urgency of climate change's impacts and limited success in reducing emissions, "geoengineering," or the artificial manipulation of the climate to reduce warming rates, has been proposed as an alternative short-term…
Nature has found one method of organizing living matter, but maybe other options exist -- not yet discovered -- on how to create life. To study the life "as it could be" is the objective of an interdisciplinary field called Artificial Life…
Spatial extent is a complicating factor in mathematical biology. The possibility that an action at point A cannot immediately affect what happens at point B creates the opportunity for spatial nonuniformity. This nonuniformity must change…
Emergence is a phenomenon taken for granted in science but also still not well understood. We have developed a model of artificial genetic evolution intended to allow for emergence on genetic, population and social levels. We present the…
We examine the feasibility of predicting and subsequently managing the future evolution of a Complex Adaptive System. Our archetypal system mimics a competitive population of mechanical, biological, informational or human objects. We show…
Humans are the ultimate ecosystem engineers who have profoundly transformed the world's landscapes in order to enhance their survival. Somewhat paradoxically, however, sometimes the unforeseen effect of this ecosystem engineering is the…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
The world is changing fast, and so is the space sector. Planning for large scientific experiments two decades ahead may no longer be the most sensible approach. I develop the argument that large science experiments are becoming comparable…
Our view of the microbial world and its impact on human health is changing radically with the ability to sequence uncultured or unculturable microbes sampled directly from their habitats, ability made possible by fast and cheap next…