Related papers: Biological Processes as Exploratory Dynamics
The biological requirements for an ecosystem to develop and maintain species diversity are in general unknown. Here we consider a model ecosystem of sessile and mutually excluding organisms competing for space [Mathiesen et al. Phys. Rev.…
We analyse the unreduced, nonperturbative dynamics of an arbitrary many-body interaction process with the help of the generalised effective potential method and reveal the well-specified universal origin of change (emergence), time and…
Deterministic many-body systems governed by simple interactions can self-organize into macroscopic patterns, and the determinants of long-time behavior are assumed to be encoded in the initial configuration. Here we show that predictability…
The physiological tradition of biological research analyzes biological systems using reduced descriptions much as an engineer uses a 'black box' description of an amplifier. Simple models have been used by physiologists for a very long…
Many living and physical systems such as cell aggregates, tissues or bacterial colonies behave as unconventional systems of particles that are strongly constrained by volume exclusion and shape interactions. Understanding how these…
We define a new variant of exclusion processes in discrete time that has jump probabilities that depend on the last jump performed. In a particular limit for the jump probabilities and in suitable scaling limits for space and time, we…
We consider a critical branching particle system in $\R^d$, composed of individuals of a finite number of types $i\in\{1,...,K\}$. Each individual of type $i$ moves independently according to a symmetric $\alpha_i$-stable motion. We assume…
Molecular dynamics simulations allow to study the structure and dynamics of single biomolecules in microscopic detail. However, many processes occur on time scales beyond the reach of fully atomistic simulations and require coarse-grained…
Partitioning of (bio)materials in polymeric mixtures is a key phenomenon both in cellular environments, as well as in industrial applications. In cells, several macromolecules are suspended within different biomolecular phases. On the other…
We demonstrate with a thought experiment that fitness-based population dynamical approaches to evolution are not able to make quantitative, falsifiable predictions about the long-term behavior of evolutionary systems. A key characteristic…
Many transport processes in nature take place on substrates, often considered as unidimensional lanes. These unidimensional substrates are typically non-static: affected by a fluctuating environment, they can undergo conformational changes.…
Computer modelling for evolutionary systems consists in: 1) to store in the memory the individual features of each member of a large population; and 2) to update the whole system repeatedly, as time goes by, according to some prescribed…
While fields like Artificial Life have made huge strides in quantifying the mechanisms that distinguish living systems from non-living ones, particular mechanisms remain difficult to reproduce in silico. Known as open-endedness, we've been…
Evolutionary game theory has been successfully used to investigate the dynamics of systems, in which many entities have competitive interactions. From a physics point of view, it is interesting to study conditions under which a coordination…
Signal duration (e.g. the time scales over which an active signaling intermediate persists) is a key regulator of biological decisions in myriad contexts such as cell growth, proliferation, and developmental lineage commitments.…
Statistical physics can describe the behavior of microbial populations consisting of many heterogeneous individuals. A direct consequence is the existence of phase transitions, where the behavior of a population changes discontinuously upon…
Biomolecular condensates provide distinct chemical environments, which control various cellular processes. The diffusive dynamics and chemical kinetics inside phase-separated condensates can be studied experimentally by fluorescently…
Dynamical systems theory describes how interacting quantities change over time and space, from molecular oscillators to large-scale biological patterns. Such systems often involve nonlinear feedbacks, delays, and interactions across scales.…
Biological systems reach hierarchical complexity that has no counterpart outside the realm of biology. Undoubtedly, biological entities obey the fundamental physical laws. Can today's physics provide an explanatory framework for…
It has been proposed that, since the origin of life and the ensuing evolution of biological species, a second evolutionary process has appeared on our planet. It is the evolution of culture-e.g., ideas, beliefs, and artifacts. Does culture…