Related papers: Persistence solves Fermi Paradox but challenges SE…
The process of convective settling is based on the assumption that a small fraction of the low-entropy downflows sink from the photosphere down to the bottom of the star's envelope convection zone retaining a substantial entropy contrast.…
Cooperation is a difficult proposition in the face of Darwinian selection. Those that defect have an evolutionary advantage over cooperators who should therefore die out. However, spatial structure enables cooperators to survive through the…
I review recent observational progress concerning the evolution of the morphological distribution of galaxies in the rich cluster environment and in the faint field population. By coupling HST imagery with ground-based spectroscopic…
Natural selection and random drift are competing phenomena for explaining the evolution of populations. Combining a highly fit mutant with a population structure that improves the odds that the mutant spreads through the whole population…
The Fermi bubbles are gigantic gamma-ray structures in our Galaxy. The physical origin of the bubbles is still under debate. The leading scenarios can be divided into two categories. One is the nuclear star forming activity similar to…
Stronger selection implies faster evolution---that is, the greater the force, the faster the change. This apparently self-evident proposition, however, is derived under the assumption that genetic variation within a population is primarily…
Using elementary distributed computing techniques we suggest an explanation for two unexplained phenomena in regards to ant colonies, (a) a substantial amount of ants in an ant colony are idle, and (b) the observed low survivability of new…
Context. Generative models open up the possibility to interrogate scientific data in a more data-driven way. Aims: We propose a method that uses generative models to explore hypotheses in astrophysics and other areas. We use a neural…
The Milky Way Galaxy contains an unknown number, $N$, of civilizations that emit electromagnetic radiation (of unknown wavelengths) over a finite lifetime, $L$. Here we are assuming that the radiation is not produced indefinitely, but…
The search for technosignatures from the Galaxy or the nearby universe raises two main questions: What are the possible characteristics of technosignatures? and How can future searches be optimized to enhance the probability of detection?…
In subdivided populations, migration acts together with selection and genetic drift and determines their evolution. Building up on a recently proposed method, which hinges on the emergence of a time scale separation between local and global…
Phylogenetic methods have long been used in biology, and more recently have been extended to other fields - for example, linguistics and technology - to study evolutionary histories. Galaxies also have an evolutionary history, and fall…
I review the scientific and technical history of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), discuss the impact of the political involvement, and speculate on the nature of a successful detection and its potential social and…
In times of plenty expectations rise, just as in times of crisis they fall. This can be mathematically described as a Win-Stay-Lose-Shift strategy with dynamic aspiration levels, where individuals aspire to be as wealthy as their average…
The provision of intergenerational care, via the Grandmother Hypothesis, has been implicated in the evolution of post-fertile longevity, particularly in humans. However, if grandmothering does provide fitness benefits, a key question is why…
"Traditional SETI is not part of astrobiology" declares the NASA Astrobiology Strategy 2015 document. This is incorrect. In this white paper, I argue that SETI$-$seen as the search for technosignatures characteristic of the future of life…
The emergence of collective cooperation in competitive environments is a well-known phenomenon in biology, economics, and social systems. While most evolutionary game models focus on the evolution of strategies for a fixed game, how…
We critically investigate some evolutionary aspects of the famous Drake equation, which is usually presented as the central guide for the research on extraterrestrial intelligence. It is shown that the Drake equation tacitly relies on…
Speculation about the existence of advanced forms of life in the Universe and in our galaxy, has been since ever a subject of fascination and discussion in fiction, as well as in astrophysics, biology and philosophy. The well-known Fermi's…
The concept of emergence, or synergy in its simplest form, is widely used but lacks a rigorous definition. Our work connects information and set theory to uncover the mathematical nature of synergy as the failure of distributivity. It…