Related papers: Epigenetics: What it is about?
The modeling of time series is becoming increasingly critical in a wide variety of applications. Overall, data evolves by following different patterns, which are generally caused by different user behaviors. Given a time series, we define…
Experimental evolution has yielded surprising insights into human history and evolution by shedding light on the roles of chance and contingency in history and evolution, and on the deep evolutionary roots of cooperation, conflict and kin…
Biological organisms adapt to changes by processing informations from different sources, most notably from their ancestors and from their environment. We review an approach to quantify these informations by analyzing mathematical models of…
Meiotic recombination is a fundamental feature of sexually reproducing species. It is often required for proper chromosome segregation and plays important role in adaptation and the maintenance of genetic diversity. The molecular mechanisms…
Several aspects of mathematical astrobiology are discussed. It is argued that around the time of the origin of life the handedness of biomolecules must have established itself through an instability. Possible pathways of producing a certain…
Search for possible relationships between phylogeny and ontogeny is one of the most important issues in the field of evolutionary developmental biology. By representing developmental dynamics of spatially located cells with gene expression…
Changing base composition during the evolution of biological sequences can mislead some of the phylogenetic inference techniques in current use. However, detecting whether such a process has occurred may be difficult, since convergent…
"Epigenetic Tracking" is the name of a model of cellular development that, coupled with an evolutionary technique, becomes an evo-devo (or "artificial embryology", or "computational development") method to generate 2d or 3d sets of…
The evolutionary biology of aging is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of aging and how to develop anti-aging treatments. Thus far most evolutionary theory concerns the genetics of aging with limited physiological integration.…
Unraveling the evolutionary forces shaping bacterial diversity can today be tackled using a growing amount of genomic data. While the genome of eukaryotes is highly stable, bacterial genomes from cells of the same species highly vary in…
It is high time to openly and without finalism define the dangerous but needed term 'purposeful information', whose quantity is an Eigen information value. Using the term 'biological information' in its stead forces one into an…
Gene regulatory network of lambda phage is one the best studied model systems in molecular biology. More 50 years of experimental study has provided a tremendous amount of data at all levels: physics, chemistry, DNA, protein, and function.…
Nutrigenomics is an emerging field that explores the intricate interaction between genes and diet. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive database to help clinicians and patients understand the connections between genetic disorders,…
One way to understand the role history plays on evolutionary trajectories is by giving ancient life a second opportunity to evolve. Our ability to empirically perform such an experiment, however, is limited by current experimental designs.…
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by seizures and epileptic events intertwined with religious and personal beliefs since prehistoric times. This review paper explores the historical context and challenges in defining…
Understanding how genotypes map onto phenotypes, fitness, and eventually organisms is arguably the next major missing piece in a fully predictive theory of evolution. We refer to this generally as the problem of the genotype-phenotype map.…
With the completion of human genome mapping, the focus of scientists seeking to explain the biological complexity of living systems is shifting from analyzing the individual components (such as a particular gene or biochemical reaction) to…
This paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter problems because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms…
Schroedinger's book 'What is Life?' is widely credited for having played a crucial role in development of molecular and cellular biology. My essay revisits the issues raised by this book from the modern perspective of epigenetics and…
Population genetics lies at the heart of evolutionary theory. This topic forms part of many biological science curricula but is rarely taught to physics students. Since physicists are becoming increasingly interested in biological…