Related papers: Origin of genetic information from minority contro…
We consider a branching model for a population of dividing cells infected by parasites. Each cell receives parasites by inheritance from its mother cell and independent contamination from outside the population. Parasites multiply randomly…
Textual analysis of typical microbial genomes reveals that they have the statistical characteristics of a DNA sequence of a much shorter length. This peculiar property supports an evolutionary model in which a genome evolves by random…
The Conservation of Energy plays a pivotal part in the development of the physical sciences. With the growth of computation and the study of other discrete token based systems such as the genome, it is useful to ask if there are…
We propose a principle of consistency between different hierarchical levels of biological systems. Given a consistency between molecule replication and cell reproduction, universal statistical laws on cellular chemical abundances are…
We represent a process of learning by using bit strings, where 1-bits represent the knowledge acquired by individuals. Two ways of learning are considered: individual learning by trial-and-error; and social learning by copying knowledge…
Based on a non-equilibrium mechanism for spatial pattern formation we study how position information can be controlled by locally coupled discrete dynamical networks, similar to gene regulation networks of cells in a developing…
Eukaryotic cells are often exposed to fluctuations in growth conditions as well as endogenous and exogenous stress-related agents. In addition, during development global patterns of gene transcription change dramatically, and these changes…
During each ovarian cycle, only a definite number of follicles ovulate, while the others undergo a degeneration process called atresia. We have designed a multi-scale mathematical model where ovulation and atresia result from a hormonal…
The origin of diversification and coexistence of genes and species have been traditionally studied in isolated biological levels. Ecological and evolutionary views have focused on the mechanisms that enable or constrain species coexistence,…
The dynamics of active matter driven by interacting molecular motors has a non-potential structure at the local scale. However, we show that there exists a quasi-potential effectively describing the collective self-organization of the…
How much information does a cell inherit from its ancestors beyond its genetic sequence? What are the epigenetic mechanisms that allow this? Despite the rise in available epigenetic data, how such information is inherited through the cell…
Life occurs in concentrated `Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology…
Development combines three basic processes asymmetric --- cell division, signaling and gene regulation --- in a multitude of ways to create an overwhelming diversity of multicellular life-forms. Here, we attempt to chart this diversity…
Power law distributions have been repeatedly observed in a wide variety of socioeconomic, biological and technological areas. In many of the observations, e.g., city populations and sizes of living organisms, the objects of interest evolve…
The origin of life can be understood mathematically to be the origin of information that can replicate. The likelihood that entropy spontaneously becomes information can be calculated from first principles, and depends exponentially on the…
A central and long-standing issue in evolutionary theory is the origin of the biological variation upon which natural selection acts1. Some hypotheses suggest that evolutionary change represents an adaptation to the surrounding environment…
Genetic regulatory networks control ontogeny. For fifty years Boolean networks have served as models of such systems, ranging from ensembles of random Boolean networks as models for generic properties of gene regulation to working dynamical…
The reproduction of a living cell requires a repeatable set of chemical events to be properly coordinated. Such events define a replication cycle, coupling the growth and shape change of the cell membrane with internal metabolic reactions.…
Exact law of mortality dynamics in changing populations and environment is derived. The law is universal for all species, from single cell yeast to humans. It includes no characteristics of animal- environment interactions (metabolism etc)…
The origin and early evolution of eukaryotes are one of the major transitions in the evolution of life on earth. One of its most interesting aspects is the emergence of cellular organelles, their dynamics, their functions, and their…