Related papers: Bioengineering the biosphere?
Computing systems are omnipresent; their sustainability has become crucial for our society. A key aspect of this sustainability is the ability of computing systems to cope with the continuous change they face, ranging from dynamic operating…
The search for exoplanetary life must encompass the complex geological processes reflected in an exoplanet's atmosphere, or we risk reporting false positive and false negative detections. To do this, we must nurture the nascent discipline…
Artificial swarm systems have been extensively studied and used in computer science, robotics, engineering and other technological fields, primarily as a platform for implementing robust distributed systems to achieve pre-defined…
Machine learning (ML) is becoming increasingly crucial in many fields of engineering but has not yet played out its full potential in bioprocess engineering. While experimentation has been accelerated by increasing levels of lab automation,…
Self-organization of heterogeneous particle swarms is rich in its dynamics but hard to design in a traditional top-down manner, especially when many types of kinetically distinct particles are involved. In this chapter, we discuss how we…
Ecology and evolution are inseparable. Motivated by some recent experiments, we have developed models of evolutionary ecology from the perspective of dynamic networks. In these models, in addition to the intra-node dynamics, which…
The Sun's gradual brightening will seriously compromise the Earth's biosphere within ~ 1E9 years. If Earth's orbit migrates outward, however, the biosphere could remain intact over the entire main-sequence lifetime of the Sun. In this…
It is sometimes asserted that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. We critically examine the assumptions inherent in this argument. Using a lottery model for biogenesis in the Universe, we…
Computing is at a moment of profound opportunity. Emerging applications -- such as capable artificial intelligence, immersive virtual realities, and pervasive sensor systems -- drive unprecedented demand for computer. Despite recent…
Evolutionary robot systems are usually affected by the properties of the environment indirectly through selection. In this paper, we present and investigate a system where the environment also has a direct effect: through regulation. We…
We study the prospects for life on planets with subsurface oceans, and find that a wide range of planets can exist in diverse habitats with ice envelopes of moderate thickness. We quantify the energy sources available to these worlds, the…
The perception that the convergence of biological engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) could enable increased biorisk has recently drawn attention to the governance of biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The 2023 Executive…
Over the past two decades, enormous advances in the detection of exoplanets have taken place. Currently, we have discovered hundreds of earth-sized planets, several of them within the habitable zone of their star. In the coming years, the…
In the coming years and decades, advanced space- and ground-based observatories will allow an unprecedented opportunity to probe the atmospheres and surfaces of potentially habitable exoplanets for signatures of life. Life on Earth, through…
Recently, many Earth-sized planets have been discovered around stars other than the Sun that might possess appropriate conditions for life. The development of theoretical methods for assessing the putative habitability of these worlds is of…
Modeling environmental ecosystems is essential for effective resource management, sustainable development, and understanding complex ecological processes. However, traditional methods frequently struggle with the inherent complexity,…
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution foretold of during the 1960s is well underway in the second decade of the 21st century. Its period of phenomenal growth likely lies ahead. Still, we believe, there are crucial lessons that biology…
Upcoming biosignature searches focus on indirect indicators to infer the presence of life on other worlds. Aside from just signaling the presence of life, however, some biosignatures can contain information about the state that a planet's…
With the growing number of discovered exoplanets, the Gaia concept finds its second wind. The Gaia concept defines that the biosphere of an inhabited planet regulates a planetary climate through feedback loops such that the planet remains…
Habitat loss, driven primarily by anthropogenic activity, significantly threatens ecosystem sustainability. While it is well understood that habitat loss is the leading contributor to declines in biodiversity worldwide, the connection…