Related papers: Synthetic circuit designs for Earth terraformation
A multispecies artificial ecosystem is formulated using cellular automata with species interactions and food chain hierarchy. The constructed finite state automaton can simulate the complexity and self-organized characteristics of the…
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…
We propose a unified framework linking silicate weathering feedbacks, ecohydrological optimality and vegetation-climate interactions to explain Earth's Global Average Temperature evolution over the Phanerozoic. The framework integrates two…
The ultimate climate emergency is a "runaway greenhouse": a hot and water vapour rich atmosphere limits the emission of thermal radiation to space, causing runaway warming. Warming ceases only once the surface reaches ~1400K and emits…
It is generally recognized that a distinguishing feature of life is its peculiar capability to avoid equilibration. The origin of this capability and its evolution along the timeline of abiogenesis is not yet understood. We propose to study…
In the past decades human activities caused global Earth system changes, e.g., climate change or biodiversity loss. Simultaneously, these associated impacts have increased environmental awareness within societies across the globe, thereby…
Technology is increasingly shaping our social structures and is becoming a driving force in altering human biology. Besides, human activities already proved to have a significant impact on the Earth system which in turn generates complex…
Extreme weather events stemming from climate change can cause significant damage and disruption to power systems. Failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change and its cascading effects can lead to short and long term issues. The profound…
Environmentally-powered computer systems operate on renewable energy harvested from their environment, such as solar or wind, and stored in batteries. While harvesting environmental energy has long been necessary for small-scale embedded…
It is increasingly recognized that the multiple and systemic impacts of Earth system change threaten the prosperity of society through altered land carbon dynamics, freshwater variability, biodiversity loss, and climate extremes. For…
Ecosystems often undergo abrupt regime shifts in response to gradual external changes. These shifts are theoretically understood as a regime switch between alternative stable states of the ecosystem dynamical response to smooth changes in…
A transition to a low-carbon electricity supply is crucial to limit the impacts of climate change. Reducing carbon emissions could help prevent the world from reaching a tipping point, where runaway emissions are likely. Runaway emissions…
Resilience is a property of social, ecological, social-ecological and biophysical systems. It describes the capacity of a system to cope with, adapt to and innovate in response to a changing surrounding. Given the current climate change…
This paper establishes a quantitative and structural framework for civilizational continuity under rapid, non-linear ecological transitions. Utilizing empirical data on Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI), currently measured at 1.36 W/m^2, we…
Creating autonomous, self-supporting, self-replicating, sustainable systems is a great challenge. To some extent, understanding life means not only being able to create it from scratch, but also improving, supporting, saving it, or even…
A central goal of synthetic biology is to design sophisticated synthetic cellular circuits that can perform complex computations and information processing tasks in response to specific inputs. The tremendous advances in our ability to…
Humans have been able to tackle biosphere complexities by acting as ecosystem engineers, profoundly changing the flows of matter, energy and information. This includes major innovations that allowed to reduce and control the impact of…
Current understanding suggests that as the Sun brightens in the far future, Earth's carbonate-silicate cycle will offset increasing temperatures by drawing CO$_2$ out of the atmosphere, ultimately leading to the extinction of all…
The possibility that evolutionary forces -- together with a few fundamental factors such as thermodynamic constraints, specific computational features enabling information processing, and ecological processes -- might constrain the logic of…
Innovation in synthetic biology often still depends on large-scale experimental trial-and-error, domain expertise, and ingenuity. The application of rational design engineering methods promise to make this more efficient, faster, cheaper…