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Displaying entries 31 through 45 of 90 found.

Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

Cochrane, Wesley, et al. Cross-chiral exponential amplification of an RNA enzyme.. PNAS. 121/44, 2024. Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA researchers including Gerald Joyce contribute to a latest origin of life emphasis on nature’s dual orientation feature. In this paper, a further perception of innate catalytic activities is factored in. See also The astrochemical evolutionary traits of phospholipid membrane homochirality by Jana Bockova, et al in Nature Reviews Chemistry. (8/652, 2024) and Prebiotic chiral transfer from self-aminoacylating ribozymes may favor either handedness by John Kenchel, et al in Nature Communications (15/7980, 2024).

An RNA ligase ribozyme that catalyzes the joining of RNA molecules of the opposite chiral handedness was optimized for the ability to synthesize its own enantiomer from two component fragments. The mirror-image D- and L-ligases operate in concert to provide a system for cross-chiral replication, whereby they catalyze each other's synthesis and undergo mutual amplification. Unlike the nucleic acid replication that relies on pairing between complementary strands, cross-chiral mode relies on tertiary interactions between structured nucleic acids "across the mirror." There are no prior examples, in either biological or chemical systems, of cross-chiral replication enabling exponential amplification. (Excerpt)

A special form of autocatalysis, rarely seen outside of biology, involves self-replication with exponential growth. Biology relies on building blocks of the same chiral handedness, including nucleic acids that contain only D-sugars. Here, a system of cross-replicating RNAs was devised based on a ribozyme that joins two RNA fragments of opposite handedness to form its own enantiomer. The D- and L-ribozymes grow together exponentially and can be propagated indefinitely, demonstrating a form of autocatalytic self-replication that relies on an RNA enzyme and its mirror image. (News review)

Homochirality is a uniformity of chirality, or handedness. Objects are chiral when they cannot be superposed on their mirror images. In biology, 19 of the 20 natural amino acids are homochiral, being L-chiral (left-handed), while sugars are D-chiral (right-handed). Homochirality can also refer to enantiopure substances in which all the constituents are the same enantiomer (a right-handed or left-handed version of an atom or molecule).

Cutts, Elise. The Cosmos Teems with Complex Organic Molecules. Quanta. November 13, 2024. The Austrian based science expositor provides a latest survey of a decidedly “Organic Cosmos” (graphic title) which has by now been found to be filled with all manner of fertile ingredients for living systems to come together, react and arise on their way to our present Earthuman observance and potential continuance.

What the Rosetta satellite did for comets, Japan’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s Osiris-Rex are doing for asteroids. In 2020 and 2023, respectively, the two missions scooped up samples of Bennu and Ryugu and returned them to Earth. Scientists have since found find that both asteroids sport plenty of organic molecules. Ryugu alone including 15 different amino acids. “It’s just everything possible from which life could emerge,” said Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin), an organic geoscientist at the Technical University of Munich.

“I would like to know where we come from as a planetary species,” said Karin Öberg, an astrochemist at Harvard University.
By sending probes to sample primordial comets and asteroids, peering into planet-forming disks with telescopes, and re-creating spacelike conditions in labs and computer models, scientists are uncovering the origins of complex organic molecules. Their findings indicate that planets like ours likely inherit much of their organic material from a time before the sun.

Kenchel, John, et al. Prebiotic chiral transfer from self-aminoacylating ribozymes may favor either handedness. Nature Communications. 15/7980, 2024. Eleven UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, and NASA Goddard biochemists including Irene Chen provide insights into how these biomolecular left/right versions occur which then seem to lock into either option. We also acknowledge the second quote that different original conditions could divert into other evolutionary paths. But one might muse, that akin to many-body physics, they all might wind up with an intended result of a global sentience like our own able to learn and avail all this.

Modern life is homochiral, containing D-sugars in nucleic acids and L-amino acids in proteins. Since coded proteins may have come from a prebiotic RNA World, the homochirality of L-amino acids could have come a homochiral D-RNA World. Here we test the chiral selectivity of 15 ribozymes derived from a search of sequence space. All of the ribozymes exhibit detectable selectivity with chiral preference is conserved within sequence families. These results are consistent with the transfer of chiral information from RNA to proteins but do not support an intrinsic bias of D-RNA for L-amino acids. (Excerpt)

A different chemical origin of life may be governed by other principles. Nevertheless, in the context of chiral transfer in an RNA world, the results suggest that when replaying the Gouldian “tape of life,” a homochiral L-protein world would not be guaranteed by a general chemical bias. Given the likely play of chance in ribozyme discovery, the emergence of an L- vs. D-protein world may have been as random as a coin flip. (4)

Wenzel, Gabi, et al. Detection of interstellar 1-cyanopyrene: A four-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon. Science. October, 2024. In a widely noted work, twenty-five coauthors from MIT, NASA and across the USA to British Columbia including Brett McGuire and Ilsa Cooke report finding an important astrochemical biomolecular component that fills in a previous sequential prebiotic gap.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are organic molecules containing adjacent aromatic rings. Infrared emission bands show that PAHs are abundant in space, but only a few specific PAHs have been detected in the interstellar medium. We found a cyano-substituted derivative of the related four-ring PAH pyrene in radio observations of the dense cloud TMC-1 using the Green Bank Telescope. This abundance indicates that interstellar PAH chemistry favors the production of pyrene. (Excerpt)

The molecule, a type of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), is of significant interest because it offers new clues about the distribution of carbon throughout the cosmos. The discovery bridges the gap between interstellar clouds and the materials in our solar system, providing critical insights into how carbon-rich molecules could have contributed to the formation of planets and life. The presence of large PAH molecules like pyrene suggests that these compounds could be widespread in the universe. (Daily Galaxy news report)

Deeg, Hans and Juan Antonio Belmonte, eds. Handbook of Exoplanets, 2nd edition.. Switzerland: Springer,, 2025. After their 2018 volume, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain exo-experts have put together 167 new chapters on every aspect of this expansive global, solar, galactic and cosmic frontier. A brief sample could be Tightly Packed Planetary Systems (Rebekah Dawson), Galactic Effects on Habitability (Nathan Kalb), Exomoons and Exorings (Rene Heller), and Gravitational Interactions and Habitability (Rory Barnes and Russell Deitrick). The second edition has been fully updated with latest advancements, including the James Webb Space Telescope. The Springer book site lists every entry with an abstract.

Lin, Wen-Xu et al. Decoding the Future of Exoplanets: Asteroseismic Confirmation of Subgiant and Red Giant Hosts.. arXiv:2411.14703. Eight Yunnan University, Kunming, and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing propose that exoworld characterizations would benefit if this significant property of relative seismic activity could be studied and factored in

Asteroseismology has become a powerful tool to unravel the actual relationships between evolved stars and their planetary systems. In this study, we investigate the evolutionary stages of five exoplanet host stars which exhibit solar-like oscillations. By measuring asteroseismic parameters such as the period spacing of dipole gravity modes (ΔΠ1), we confirm these stars' evolutionary states as subgiants or RGB stars. This research highlights the profound role of asteroseismology in advancing our knowledge of planetary system evolution and opens new pathways for exploring how stellar evolution impacts planetary survival. (Excerpt)

Mandel, Ilya, ed.. Encyclopedia of Astrophysics.. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2025. This copious volume edited by a Monash University astro-authority is expected by September 25. Several entries have already been posted on the arXiv.com preprint site.

Encyclopedia of Astrophysics will be a comprehensive reference work consisting of with some 150 articles, overseen by an editorial board of veteran astrophysicists. With a logical template binding all chapters, with main sections, such as: Cosmology: Big Bang, dark matter, dark energy, CMB, lensing, general relativity; Galaxies: morphology, galaxy zoo, AGN, star formation, chemical evolution, ISM; Stars: stellar evolution, the Sun, asteroseismology; and (Exo)planets: Solar system, comets / meteors, dynamics, observations, transits.

Muresan, Alexandra, et al. Diversities and similarities exhibited by multi-planetary systems and their architectures: I. Orbital spacings.. Astronomy & Astrophysics.. October 27, 2024. Chalmers University of Technology exoplanet scientists give further credence to sunny stars with global orrerys as having a whole scale, integral unity.

The rich diversity of multi-planetary arrays is contrasted by unity within many of these solar systems. Previous studies have shown that compact Kepler versions tend to exhibit a peas-in-a-pod architecture: This work examines larger, diverse sample with at least three planets. We focused on adjacent orbital spacings and the similarities of the sizes, masses, and spacings of planets within each system. Notably, planets in the same system can be similarly spaced even if they do not have similar masses or sizes. (Excerpt)

Ecosmomics: Independent, UniVersal, Complex Network Systems and a Genetic Code-Script Source

grosu, Claudius. Complex and Adaptive Dynamical Systems. Switzerland: Springer, 2024.. Switzerland: Springer, 2024. The Goethe University, Frankfurt physicist (search) presents his latest, fifth edition of these wide-ranging course volume. But as studies of these dynamic nonlinear realms proceed into a fourth decade, an olden particle paradigm still reigns and forestalls a 21st century revolution.

This textbook offers a comprehensive introduction to the concepts of complex and emergent behavior..The core aspects of modern system sciences are presented in the first chapters, covering networks and dynamical theory, with a focus on scale-free networks and tipping phenomena. Information principles are discussed in further chapters, together self-organized criticality, synchronization phenomena, and a game-theoretical treatments. The dynamical systems view of modern machine learning is presented in a new chapter.

Table of Contents Network Theory.- Bifurcations and Chaos in Dynamical Systems.- Dissipation, Noise and Adaptive Systems.- Self Organization.- Information Theory of Complex Systems.- Self-Organized Criticality.- Random Boolean Networks.- Darwinian Evolution, Hypercycles and Game Theory.- Synchronization Phenomena.- Complexity of Machine Learning.- Solutions.

Taran, Somayeh. Complex Network in Solar Features. arXiv:2410.09814. Into late this year, a University of Tabriz, Iran astrophysicist, building on her prior collegial studies along with full access to the global research cyber-literature, can proceed to analyze and find that even sunshine will hold to and exemplify nature’s universal dynamic patterns. See also Complex network view to solar flare asymmetric activity by S. Taran, et al in Advances in Space Research 70/8, 2022.

This paper is an overview of studying the solar features in a complex network approach. We introduce their structural features and important parameters such as detrended fluctuation, range analysis and power-law distributions. Using the HEALPix pixelization, as well as applying centrality (the nodes with the highest connectivity, closeness, betweenness, and Pagerank) we showed that the active areas on the solar surface were correctly identified. The complex network of sunspots has also shown that their appearance is formed through complex nonlinear dynamics.

Sunspots Complex Networks Sunspots are a phenomenon that clearly shows the complexity of the solar magnetic field. Studying the sunspot time series generally reveals the periodicity of solar activities, although the amplitude of sunspot activity differs in various periods. Sunspots with different numbers and sizes appear on the solar surface, and observations show that large spots are divided into tiny spots, which is a sign of the self-organization of the sunspot system. (24)

Castro, Daniel, et al. Interdependent scaling exponents in the human brain. arXiv:2411.09098. Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil and Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena, University of Amsterdam neuroscientists add a physical depth to complex network system studies by way of renormalization theories. By so doing, a further exposition and evidence of pervasive self-organized criticalities which enhance cerebral functions and faculties is achieved. See also In and Out of Criticality? State-Dependent Scaling in the Rat Visual Cortex by Daniel Castro, et al in PRX Life (2/023008, 2024).

We apply renormalization group (RG) theories to resting-state fMRI imagings of brain activity in a large population. By recursively coarse-graining the data, we compute scaling exponents for the series variance, log probability of silence, and covariance eigenvalues. We find a significant correlation of exponent values with the gray matter volume and cognitive performance. Akin to scaling relations near critical points in thermodynamics, our findings suggest that scalar interdependencies are intrinsic to brain organization and may also exist in other complex systems. (Abstract)

A key insight from RG theory is that scaling exponents — quantities describing the behavior of physical observables near a phase transition — are interdependent. Their exponents determine the universality class, so systems with widely different microscopic details can share the same macroscopic critical behavior. (1) Finally, given that our approach relies on time series data analysis, it also opens the possibility of finding scaling interdependencies in other complex systems exhibiting multiscale dynamics. Exploring these systems could advance the general understanding of universality and pave the way towards identifying key underlying mechanisms governing complex system behavior. (4)

Hancock, Fran, et al. Metastability Demystified—The Foundational Past, the Pragmatic Present, and the Potential Future. preprints202307.1445.v1.pdf.. King's College London, University of Sussex, University of Newcastle, Australia, Florida Atlantic University, Oxford and Montreal Neurological Institute including Fernando Rosas, Scott Kelso and Andrea Luppi provide a latest comprehensive survey of wide and deep tendencies to arrange and optimize cerebral functions as a best bicameral balancing act between chimera-like more or less coherent states. Once again into 2024 these many findings, aka self-organized criticalities, approach a proven mathematical veracity which contribute to manifold discoveries of a natural universality across the infinities. See also The Squiggle Sense: The Complementary Nature and the Metastable Brain~Mind by Scott Kelso and David Engstrom (Springer, 2024) for another version.

Healthy brain functioning depends on stable integration between areas for coordinated functioning to reconfigure and express localization. Metastability, a concept that joins statistical physics and dynamical systems theory, could be a key signature of this trait. In regard, the neuroscience literature has used markers of metastability to attribute brain functions such as cognitive performance, healthy ageing, meditation, sleep, and pharmacological issues to psychiatric disorders. In this paper we review metastability neuroscience, covering its scientific and historical foundations and to estimate it in empirical data. (Excerpts)

The notion of “metastability” has been increasingly employed in neuroscience investigations.1 Metastability has been associated with coexisting tendencies in neuronal populations (e.g., brain regions) to work collectively by coordinating the activity across multiple brain regions while also exhibiting segregated activity to allow the performance of specialised functions. Thus, metastability is said to reflect a mixture of cooperation and relative independence between brain areas in response to inputs from the environment; it is considered to be a fundamental signature of high brain functions. (!)

Vidiella, Blai, et al. Networks: The Visual Language of Complexity. arXiv:2410.16158. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, CSIC-UPF, Barcelona system theorists including Sergi Valverde post this chapter to appear in Nonlinear Dynamics for Biological Systems from Springer, Switzerland next year.

Network theory has emerged as an intuitive framework to represent inter-dependencies among many system components, with both local and global properties. While basic growth mechanisms, like preferential attachment, can have a power-law degree distribution, they lack other uses. Different network extensions, like hypergraphs, have been developed to integrate exogenous factors in evolutionary models, as pairwise interactions are insufficient to capture environmentally-mediated species associations. As we confront societal and climatic challenges, the study of network and hypergraphs will aid in understanding and managing complexity. (Excerpt)

Berche,, Bertrand, et al. Statistical physics and emergent behaviour: from spin models to cultural complexity.. Condensed Matter Physics. 27/3, 2024. Université de Lorraine, Johannes Kepler University, Austria and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Lviv, polyscholars including Yuri Holovatch introduce a special issue in memory of Ralph Kenna (search) who passed from natural causes last year. Of further note is that this journal is based in the Ukraine, see text below. Since 2010 an extended collaboration has gone on between Ireland, Coventry, Lorraine, Leipzig and Lviv, with many writings reviewed. Some other papers herein are Quantifying the role of supernatural entities in Irish sagas by Padraig MacCarron (arXiv:2409.12071) and Female Representation Across Mythologies by M. Janickyj, et al (arXiv:2409.11482).

But this entry can then exemplify a subsuming apocalyptic dilemma. At the same while that senseless carnage besieges, as also Mid East countries, a local and global scientific ecosmic, consilient revolution is well underway in our collaborative midst. Again, this resource website tries to gather, report and document its palliative and dispensational occasion. So here is our stark, momentary challenge between blindly settling past scores and a phenomenal discovery and visionary future.

It’s been sixty years Ralph’s birth day and soon it will be one year since he left us. Initially, this collection of papers was being prepared as a Festschrift, and now it is published in his memory. It is also difficult to write because of the versatility of his gifts: from statistical physics to field theory, from the science of complex systems to quantitative methods in social sciences and humanities, from scientometrics to history of physics.
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Condensed Matter Physics contains original and review articles in the field of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics of equilibrium and nonequilibrium processes, relativistic mechanics of interacting particle systems.The main attention is paid to physics of solid, liquid and amorphous systems, phase equilibria and phase transitions, thermal, structural, electric, magnetic and optical properties of condensed matter.

As you probably know, a considerable part of the electricity generation capabilities of Ukraine has been destroyed or damaged by targeted missile strikes carried out by the Russian Federation. The end users, including us, have stabilizing rolling power outages every day for several hours. We are doing our best to provide online access to the journal Web-site and archive. In the meantime, we would like to note that the papers published in CMP are also posted on the arXiv.org eprint site and are available there.

Kim, Hyunuk, et al. Deeply nested structure of mythological traditions worldwide. arXiv:2408.07300. This entry by HK, Elon University, Hyejin Youn, Northwestern University, Marcus Hamilton, UT San Antonio and Woo-Sung Jung, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea is an example of our Earthumanity retrospect as it parses a thousand prior versions so as to discern a common, persistence – one story of love and glory – which seems to recur in cultural kind everywhere. The complexity science authors then describe a deep, innate consistency by way of self-similar network topologies. How then might our planetary edition be told anew, which we muse would be about a familial procreativity, via a pediatric poetry and prose.

Many human societies have unique narratives that shape their customs and beliefs. Despite diversities, symbolic elements are common across many cultures. Here, we analyze mythological themes and traditions to reveal how global mythologies exhibit geographic and thematic nestings across a layered structure. This hierarchical frame aligns with historical migration patterns which suggests that narrative themes have been carried through deep history. At smaller scales, the correspondence with bioregions indicates that these stories are locally adapted and diffused. Our approach opens new research avenues to reconstruct historical patterns and provide insight into human cultural narratives. (Abstract excerpt)

These networks are consistent with an Africa to Eurasia, the Americas, and Oceania traverse and align with evolutionary frameworks for global traditions. The mythological record around the world today is a palimpsest of motifs agglomerated over time and space. This is reflected not only in phylogenetically ancient myths but in Paleolithic traditions of rock art, ornamentation, and statuary and the archaeological residue of belief systems. The deep structure we report is the result of these cultural evolutionary processes playing out over tens of thousands of years (21, 22).

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