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How mutations accumulate in genomes is the central question of molecular evolution theories, however our understanding of this process is far from complete. Drake's rule is a notoriously universal property of genomes from microbes to…
Theoretical ecology has traditionally equated persistence with the stability of a fixed equilibrium point. Here we argue that the primary threat to ecosystem persistence need not be the loss of stability, but instead the escape of the…
The universal genetic code presents a fundamental paradox in molecular biology. Recent advances in synthetic biology have demonstrated that the code is remarkably flexible--organisms can survive with 61 codons instead of 64, natural…
The issue of longevity has been long time recognized as one of key concepts in demography. A particular aspect of longevity addressed in this paper is the difference in average observed duration of life for female and male population,…
The accounts of medical trials provide very detailed information about the patients' health conditions. In contrast, only minimal data are usually given about demographic factors. Yet, some of these factors can have a notable impact on the…
In evolutionary algorithms, the fitness of a population increases with time by mutating and recombining individuals and by a biased selection of more fit individuals. The right selection pressure is critical in ensuring sufficient…
In evolutionary algorithms, the fitness of a population increases with time by mutating and recombining individuals and by a biased selection of more fit individuals. The right selection pressure is critical in ensuring sufficient…
The spreading of evolutionary novelties across populations is the central element of adaptation. Unless population are well-mixed (like bacteria in a shaken test tube), the spreading dynamics not only depends on fitness differences but also…
Existing theories for the evolution of aging and death treat senescence as a side-effect of strong selection for fertility. These theories are well-developed mathematically, but fit poorly with emerging experimental data. The data suggest…
The ultimate fate of life in a universe with accelerated expansion is considered. Previous work showed that life cannot go on indefinitely in a universe dominated by a cosmological constant. In this paper we consider instead other models of…
In this review, we discuss the applications of the theory of birth-and-death processes to problems in biology, primarily, those of evolutionary genomics. The mathematical principles of the theory of these processes are briefly described.…
Biological evolution is realised through the same mechanisms of birth and death that underlie change in population density. The deep interdependence between ecology and evolution is well-established, and recent models focus on integrating…
Infant mortality, by which we understand the postnatal stage during which mortality is declining, is a manifestation and embodiment of congenital abnormalities. Severe defects will translate into death occurring shortly after birth whereas…
Evolution occurs in populations of reproducing individuals. It is well known that population structure can affect evolutionary dynamics. Traditionally, natural selection is studied between mutants that differ in reproductive rate, but are…
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…
The adaptation rate in theoretical models of biological evolution increases with the mutation rate but only to a point when mutations into lethal states cause extinction. One would expect that removing such states should be beneficial for…
Complex systems, in many different scientific sectors, show coarse-grain properties with simple growth laws with respect to fundamental microscopic algorithms. We propose a classification scheme of growth laws which includes human aging,…
Survival analysis concerns the task of predicting the time until an event occurs. Often used in the medical field, survival analysis deals with incomplete (i.e., censored) data, for instance, from patients who did not experience the event…
Demographic transition, characterized by declines in fertility and mortality, is a global phenomenon associated with modernization. While typical patterns of fertility decline are observed in Western countries, their applicability to other…
Evolution is a dynamic process. The two classical forces of evolution are mutation and selection. Assuming small mutation rates, evolution can be predicted based solely on the fitness differences between phenotypes. Predicting an…