相关论文: Origins of Bipedalism
Among all kinds of apes, only gibbons have the slim body as human. Gibbons can move in the forest by cross arm swing, what was the locomotion mode of our arboreal ancestor. Since our ancestor had much heavier body but weaker arms than…
Various fossil evidences show that hunting is one of major means of ancient human to get foods. But the running speed of our ancestors was much slower than quadruped animals, and they did not have sharp claws and canines. So, they have to…
According to the "hard-steps" model, the origin of humanity required "successful passage through a number of intermediate steps" (so-called "hard" or "critical" steps) that were intrinsically improbable with respect to the total time…
The Sapient Paradox is the apparently unexplainable time delay of several ten thousand years following the arrival of Homo sapiens in Asia and Europe and before the introduction of impressive innovations with the agricultural revolution.…
Foot stiffness underlies its mechanical function, and is central to the evolution of human bipedal locomotion. The stiff and propulsive human foot has two distinct arches, the longitudinal and transverse. By contrast, the feet of non-human…
An overwhelming majority of humans are right-handed. Numerous explanations for individual handedness have been proposed, but this population-level handedness remains puzzling. Here we use a minimal mathematical model to explain this…
A simple model of species origin resulted from dynamic features of a population, solely, is developed. The model is based on the evolution optimality in space distribution, and the selection is gone over the mobility. Some biological issues…
This review is an introduction to theoretical models and mathematical calculations for biological evolution, aimed at physicists. The methods in the field are naturally very similar to those used in statistical physics, although the…
We propose a purely probabilistic model to explain the evolution path of a population maximum fitness. We show that after $n$ births in the population there are about $\ln n$ upwards jumps. This is true for any mutation probability and any…
The purpose of this roadmap article is to draw attention to a paradigm shift in our understanding of evolution towards a perspective of ecological-evolutionary feedback, highlighted through two recent highly simplified examples of rapid…
A tendency in biological theorizing is to formulate principles above or equal to Evolution by Variation and Selection of Darwin and Wallace. In this letter I analyze one such recent proposal which did so for the developmental ascendency. I…
The problem of biped locomotion at steady speeds is discussed through a Lagrangian formulation developed for velocity-dependent, body driving forces. Human walking on a level surface is analyzed in terms of the data on the resultant…
Due to recent advances in synthetic biology and artificial life, the origin of life is currently a hot topic of research. We review the literature and argue that the two traditionally competing "replicator-first" and "metabolism-first"…
Gynandromorphs are creatures where at least two different body sections are a different sex. Bilateral gynandromorphs are half male and half female. Here we develop a theory of gynandromorph ontogeny based on developmental control networks.…
It has been hypothesized that in the era just before the last universal common ancestor emerged, life on earth was fundamentally collective. Ancient life forms shared their genetic material freely through massive horizontal gene transfer…
Our understanding of evolution is shaped strongly by how we conceive of its fundamental causes. In the original Modern Synthesis, evolution was defined as a process of shifting the frequencies of available alleles at many loci affecting a…
Darwin's theory of evolution is considered to be one of the greatest scientific gems in modern science. It not only gives us a description of how living things evolve, but also shows how a population evolves through time and also, why only…
The current theory of evolution is almost the one Darwin and Wallace proposed two centuries ago and the following discoveries e.g., Mendelian genetics and neutral mutation theory have not made significant modifications. The current…
Background: Speciation corresponds to the progressive establishment of reproductive barriers between groups of individuals derived from an ancestral stock. Since Darwin did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, he…
The theory of lithopanspermia proposes the natural exchange of organisms between solar system bodies through meteorites. The focus of this theory comprises three distinct stages: planetary ejection, interplanetary transit and planetary…