Related papers: Why life is hot
Despite major environmental and genetic differences, microbial metabolic networks are known to generate consistent physiological outcomes across vastly different organisms. This remarkable robustness suggests that, at least in bacteria,…
The metabolic network of a living cell involves several hundreds or thousands of interconnected biochemical reactions. Previous research has shown that under realistic conditions only a fraction of these reactions is concurrently active in…
Life has most likely originated as a consequence of processes taking place in non-equilibrium conditions (\textit{e.g.} in the proximity of deep-sea thermal vents) selecting states of matter that would have been otherwise unfavorable at…
Life is commonly described as a self-organized, far-from-equilibrium process that maintains internal order by consuming free energy and exporting entropy. This thermodynamic view underlies diverse theoretical frameworks -- from autopoiesis…
Thermodynamic selection is an indirect competition between agents feeding on the same energy resource and obeying the laws of thermodynamics. We examine scenarios of this selection, where the agent is modeled as a heat-engine coupled to two…
The ubiquity of modules in biological networks may result from an evolutionary benefit of a modular organization. For instance, modularity may increase the rate of adaptive evolution, because modules can be easily combined into new…
Living systems maintain or increase local order by working against the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thermodynamic consistency is restored as they dissipate heat, thereby increasing the net entropy of their environment. Recently introduced…
Cells generally convert nutrient resources to useful products via energy transduction. Accordingly, the thermodynamic efficiency of this conversion process is one of the most essential characteristics of living organisms. However, although…
The metabolic processes complexity is at the heart of energy conversion in living organisms and forms a huge obstacle to develop tractable thermodynamic metabolism models. By raising our analysis to a higher level of abstraction, we develop…
Genetic information and environmental factors determine the path of an individuals life and therefore, the evolution of its entire species. We have succeeded in proposing and studying a model that captures this idea. In our model, a…
A classic problem in metabolism is that fast-proliferating cells use seemingly wasteful fermentation for energy biogenesis in the presence of sufficient oxygen. This counterintuitive phenomenon, known as overflow metabolism or the Warburg…
The growth rate of organisms depends both on external conditions and on internal states, such as the expression levels of various genes. We show that to achieve a criterion mean growth rate over an ensemble of conditions, the internal…
A pair of systems at different temperatures is a classic environment for a heat engine, which produces work during the relaxation to a common equilibrium. It is generally believed that a direct interaction between the two systems will…
Empirical evidence suggesting that living systems might operate in the vicinity of critical points, at the borderline between order and disorder, has proliferated in recent years, with examples ranging from spontaneous brain activity to…
We introduce highly optimized tolerance (HOT), a mechanism that connects evolving structure and power laws in interconnected systems. HOT systems arise, e.g., in biology and engineering, where design and evolution create complex systems…
Many mechanisms, functions and structures of life have been unraveled. However, the fundamental driving force that propelled chemical evolution and led to life has remained obscure. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, written as an equation of…
Living cells use readout molecules to record the state of receptor proteins, similar to measurements or copies in typical computational devices. But is this analogy rigorous? Can cells be optimally efficient, and if not, why? We show that,…
Many microbes live in habitats below their optimum temperature. Retention of metabolic heat by aggregation or insulation would boost growth. Generation of excess metabolic heat may also provide benefit. A cell that makes excess metabolic…
Chemically active systems such as living cells are maintained out of thermal equilibrium due to chemical events which generate heat and lead to active fluctuations. A key question is to understand on which time and length scales active…
Cellular metabolism, the integrated interconversion of thousands of metabolic substrates through enzyme-catalyzed biochemical reactions, is the most investigated complex intercellular web of molecular interactions. While the topological…