Related papers: Life's mechanism
Active nematics are the nonequilibrium analog of passive liquid crystals in which anisotropic units consume free energy to drive emergent behavior. Similar to liquid crystal (LC) molecules in displays, ordering and dynamics in active…
To illustrate the power of the biophysical approach in solving important problems in life science, I present here one of our current research projects as an example. We have developed special biophotonic techniques to study the dynamic…
We propose a minimal off-lattice model of living organisms where just a very few dynamical rules of growth are assumed. The stable coexistence of many clusters is detected when we replace the global restriction rule by a locally applied…
Proteins are the common constituents of all living cells. They are molecular machines that interact with each other as well as with other cell products and carry out a dizzying array of functions with distinction. These interactions follow…
It is often stated that there are no laws in biology, where everything is contingent and could have been otherwise, being solely the result of historical accidents. Furthermore, the customary introduction of fundamental biological entities…
The biomolecules in and around a living cell -- proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates -- continuously sample myriad conformational states that are thermally accessible at physiological temperatures. Simultaneously, a given…
Life is fundamentally a scientific enigma. The interplay between chaos, entropy dynamics, and Prigogine's dissipative systems offers profound insights into the emergence, stabilization, and eventual collapse of far-from-equilibrium systems.…
Modern biological tools have made it possible to unequivocally demonstrate the deep relationship among species in terms of genes and basic molecular mechanisms. In addition, results from genetic, physical and physiological approaches…
Life can be viewed as a localized chemical system that sits on, or in the basin of attraction of, a metastable dynamical attractor state that remains out of equilibrium with the environment. Such a view of life allows that new living states…
We propose a novel definition of life in terms of which its emergence in the universe is expected, and its ever-creative open-ended evolution is entailed by no law. Living organisms are Kantian Wholes that achieve Catalytic Closure,…
Genes are connected in complex networks of interactions where often the product of one gene is a transcription factor that alters the expression of another. Many of these networks are based on a few fundamental motifs leading to switches…
Proliferation is a defining feature of life. Through growth, division, and death, living systems consume energy and inject mass, breaking conservation laws and driving collective phenomena from biofilm formation to embryonic development.…
A dynamic model for cell differentiation is studied, where cells with internal chemical reaction dynamics interact with each other and replicate. It leads to spontaneous differentiation of cells and determination, as is discussed in the…
To unveil the logic of cell from a level of chemical reaction dynamics, we need to clarify how ensemble of chemicals can autonomously produce the set of chemical, without assuming a specific external control echanism. A cell consists of a…
Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…
A notion of biologic system or just a system implies a functional wholeness of comprising system components. Positive and negative feedback are the examples of how the idea to unite anatomical elements in the whole functional structure was…
Biological molecular machines are proteins that operate under isothermal conditions hence are referred to as free energy transducers. They can be formally considered as enzymes that simultaneously catalyze two chemical reactions: the free…
We outline a phenomenological theory of evolution and origin of life by combining the formalism of classical thermodynamics with a statistical description of learning. The maximum entropy principle constrained by the requirement for…
We apply the theory of learning to physically renormalizable systems in an attempt to develop a theory of biological evolution, including the origin of life, as multilevel learning. We formulate seven fundamental principles of evolution…
In view of ever-changing conditions both in the external world and in intrinsic brain states, maintaining the robustness of computations poses a challenge, adequate solutions to which we are only beginning to understand. At the level of…