Related papers: Do Species Evolve Through Mutations Guided by Non-…
Evolution by natural selection can be seen an algorithm for generating creative solutions to difficult problems. More precisely, evolution by natural selection is a class of algorithms that share a set of properties. The question we address…
Proteins have evolved through mutations, amino acid substitutions, since life appeared on Earth, some 109 years ago. The study of these phenomena has been of particular significance because of their impact on protein stability, function,…
Most of the DNA that composes a complex organism is non-coding and defined as junk. Even the coding part is composed of genes that affect the phenotype differently. Therefore, a random mutation has an effect on the specimen fitness that…
A model of genome evolution is proposed. Based on three assumptions the evolutionary theory of a genome is formulated. The general law on the direction of genome evolution is given. Both the deterministic classical equation and the…
Neutral evolution assumes that there are no selective forces distinguishing different variants in a population. Despite this striking assumption, many recent studies have sought to assess whether neutrality can provide a good description of…
In phylogenetic studies, the evolution of molecular sequences is assumed to have taken place along the phylogeny traced by the ancestors of extant species. In the presence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), however, this may not be the case,…
Understanding why we age is a long-lived open problem in evolutionary biology. Aging is prejudicial to the individual and evolutionary forces should prevent it, but many species show signs of senescence as individuals age. Here, I will…
Sex chromosomes have evolved repeatedly across the Tree of Life, yet their evolutionary fates differ strikingly. In sharp contrast to mammals and birds with degenerated, stable Y/W chromosomes, in most amphibians, teleosts, non avian…
Although Darwinian models are rampant in the social sciences, social scientists do not face the problem that motivated Darwin's theory of natural selection: the problem of explaining how lineages evolve despite that any traits they acquire…
The theory of natural selection has two forms. Deductive theory describes how populations change over time. One starts with an initial population and some rules for change. From those assumptions, one calculates the future state of the…
In classical evolutionary theory, genetic variation provides the source of heritable phenotypic variation on which natural selection acts. Against this classical view, several theories have emphasized that developmental variability and…
The profound impact of Darwin's theory of evolution on biology has led to the acceptance of the theory in many complex systems that lie well beyond its original domain. Culture is one example that also exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary…
The post-genomic era has brought opportunities to bridge traditionally separate fields of early history of life and brought new insight into origin and evolution of biodiversity. According to distributions of codons in genome sequences, I…
In this short communication, we shall explore a nonlinear discrete dynamical system that naturally occurs in population systems to describe a transmission of a trait from parents to their offspring. We consider a Mendelian inheritance for a…
The evolution in coding DNA sequences brings new flexibility and freedom to the codon words, even as the underlying nucleotides get significantly ordered. These curious contra-rules of gene organisation are observed from the distribution of…
A fundamental question in the field of social studies of science is how research fields emerge, grow and decline over time and space. This study confronts this question here by developing an inductive analysis of emerging research fields…
The theory of lithopanspermia proposes the natural exchange of organisms between solar system bodies through meteorites. The focus of this theory comprises three distinct stages: planetary ejection, interplanetary transit and planetary…
Significant fraction (about 98.5% in humans, 24% in microbe Rickettsia prowazekii) of most animal genomes is non-coding DNA. Although recent studies established functions of its certain portions, it remains genomic dark matter. The paper…
Which factors govern the evolution of mutation rates and emergence of species? Here, we address this question using a first principles model of life where population dynamics of asexual organisms is coupled to molecular properties and…
Plasticity-led evolution is a form of evolution where a change in the environment induces novel traits via phenotypic plasticity, after which the novel traits are genetically accommodated over generations under the novel environment. This…