Related papers: A Formal Physical Framework for the Origin of Life…
Evolution is often understood through genetic mutations driving changes in an organism's fitness, but there is potential to extend this understanding beyond the genetic code. We propose that natural products - complex molecules central to…
Turing patterns are fundamental in biophysics, emerging from short-range activation and long-range inhibition processes. However, their paradigm is based on diffusive transport processes, which yields Turing patters that are less sharp than…
An adult human body is made up of some 30 to 40 trillion cells, all of which stem from a single fertilized egg cell. The process by which the right cells appear to arrive in their right numbers at the right time at the right place --…
The thermosynthesis concept, biological free energy gain from thermal cycling, is combined with the concept of the RNA World. The resulting overall origin of life model gives new explanations for the emergence of the genetic code and the…
The search for extraterrestrial life hinges on identifying biosignatures, often focusing on gaseous metabolic byproducts as indicators. However, most such biosignatures require assuming specific metabolic processes. It is widely recognized…
We consider the relationship between thermodynamics, fitness, and Darwinian selection in autocatalytic molecular replicators. We uncover a thermodynamic bound that relates fitness, replication rate, and thermodynamic affinity of…
Most people agree that human activities are consistent with physical laws. One may naturally think that sensible economic theories can be derived from physical laws and evolutionary principles. This is indeed the case. In this paper, we…
Biological systems, unlike physical or chemical systems, are characterized by the very inhomogeneous distribution of their components. The immune system, in particular, is notable for self-organizing its structure. Classically, the dynamics…
Research on the birth and evolution of life are reviewed with reference to the maximum entropy production principle (MEPP). It has been shown that this principle is essential for consistent understanding of the birth and evolution of life.…
In this paper, we develop a natural (empirical) relational theory for describing and modeling complex biological phenomena. We have as stepping stone the assertion: function implies structure. The theory is built upon a graph's theory…
Macroscopic equations arising out of stochastic particle systems in detailed balance (called dissipative systems or gradient flows) have a natural variational structure, which can be derived from the large-deviation rate functional for the…
We review some basic issues of the life-prescribed development of the Earth's system and the Earth's atmosphere and discourse the unity of Earth's type of life in physical and transcendental divisions. In physical division, we exemplify and…
This paper describes a 2D particle system in which autopoietic vesicles that are able to grow, repair, and reproduce can emerge from an initial random distribution of individual components. The reproduction process also exhibits inheritance…
Metabolic networks perform some of the most fundamental functions in living cells, including energy transduction and building block biosynthesis. While these are the best characterized networks in living systems, understanding their…
The discipline of `theoretical biology' has been developing from its inception several decades ago almost in parallel with the advances in biology, so much so that the latter is often considered to be almost exclusively an empirical…
Physical emergence - crystals, rocks, sandpiles, turbulent eddies, planets, stars - is fundamentally different from biological emergence - amoeba, cells, mice, humans - even though the latter is based in the former. This paper points out…
Protein structure prediction and folding are fundamental to understanding biology, with recent deep learning advances reshaping the field. Diffusion-based generative models have revolutionized protein design, enabling the creation of novel…
Advances in biology have mostly relied on theories that were subsequently revised, expanded or eventually refuted using experimental and other means. Theoretical biology used to primarily provide a basis to rationally examine the frameworks…
We develop a unified, dynamical-systems narrative of the universe that traces a continuous chain of structure formation from the Big Bang to contemporary human societies and their artificial learning systems. Rather than treating cosmology,…
In this paper we derive a statistical law of Life. It governs the probability of death, or complementary of survival, of the living organisms. We have deduced such a law coupling the widely used Weibull statistics, developed for describing…