Recent Additions: New and Updated Entries in the Past 60 Days
Displaying entries 46 through 60 of 67 found.

Life's Corporeal Evolution Encodes and Organizes Itself: An EarthWinian Genesis Synthesis

Merle, Melody, et al. Precise and Scalable Self-Organization in Mammalian Pseudo-Embryos. arXiv:2303.17522. Pasteur Institute, Paris cell biologists report still another advanced way to quantify just how these natural intrinsic propensities are in vivifying effect for every aspect of a cellular and organismic evolutionary genesis.

During multi-cellular development, reproducible gene expression patterns determine cellular fates which are crucial when the body plan and the asymmetric axes emerge at gastrulation. In some species, such as flies and worms, these early processes achieve micro-spatial precision. However, we know little about such accuracy in mammalian development. Using an in vitro model for gastruloids, we find that gene expressions neatly reproduce protein concentration variabilities. Our results reveal developmental precision, reproducibility, and size scaling for mammalian systems, which notably arise spontaneously in self-organizing cell aggregates as fundamental features of multicellularity. (Excerpt)

Roughgarden, Joan. Holobiont Evolution: Population Theory for the Hologenome. American Naturalist. April, 2023. The University of Hawaii wise-wuman bioecologist posts a latest, thorough appreciation of the actual presence of life’s integrative cell and organism reciprocities. A detailed Abstract lists the many ways that this integral quality manifests and vivifies itself.

Vicente, Filipe and Alba Diz-Munoz. Order from Chaos: How Mechanics Shape Epithelia and Promote Self-Organization. Current Opinion in Systems Biology. March, 2023. European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg biophysicists describe more innate reasons how and why life’s actual orthogenesis proceeds to organize itself across many animal species and scales.

Collective cell behaviors are essential for the shape and function of tissues. Much recent work has provided experimental evidence that tissue mechanics are key drivers of morphogenesis. In regard, the spatiotemporal coordination of cellular contractility, adhesion and volume regulation can drive development. At the same time, the epithelial sheets have strong mechanical properties so to distribute stress throughout the physical deformations necessary for their function. In this review, we address recent findings on epithelia morphogenesis and mechanical resistance and highlight the importance of quantitative new approaches for achieving novel understanding.

Bozdag, Ozan, et al. De Novo Evolution of Macroscopic Multicellularity. Nature. May 10, 2023. Nine Georgia Tech systems biologists including William Ratcliff continue their Institute project as conveyed in The Evolution of Multicellularity edition (Herron herein) by citing further instances of life’s emergent persistence to attain more complex, viable, integrative organismic forms.

While early lineages started as simple cells, much less is known about how they became Darwinian entities capable of sustained evolution. Here we investigate these precursors within a long-term experiment so as to select for larger group sizes. Our model is the snowflake yeast model system, which after many runs, in an anaerobic mode evolved to macroscopic complexities which are more biophysically tough. Altogether, this research provides unique insights into life’s ongoing evolutionary transitions in individuality, whence simpler phases overcome biophysical limitations through multicellular advances.

Herron, Matthew, et al, eds. The Evolution of Multicellularity. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2022. As this major evolutionary transitions model from 1995 steadily gains credible acceptance, Georgia Tech biologists MH, William Ratcliff and Peter Conlin edit a first comprehensive volume about life’s prime cell to organism emergent ramification. An initial Theory and Philosophy section has papers by Margaret O’Malley, Corina Tarnita, Richard Michod; see next Aggregative Multicellularity (David Queller); then Clonal Multicellularity; onto Life Cycles and Complex Multicellularity (Eric Libby); finally Syntheses and Conclusions (see quote). Certain chapters are Life Cycles as a Central Organizing Theme, Group Transformation, Life History, Division of Labor, and Individuality Transitions aand Single-Celled Ancestors of Animals. See

Among the most important innovations in the history of life is the transition from single-celled organisms to more complex, multicellular organisms. Multicellularity has evolved repeatedly across the tree of life, resulting in the evolution of new kinds of organisms that collectively constitute a significant portion of Earth’s biodiversity and have transformed the biosphere. This volume examines the origins and subsequent evolution of multicellularity, reviewing the types of multicellular groups that exist, their evolutionary relationships, the processes that led to their evolution, and the conceptual frameworks in which their evolution is understood. (Publisher)

The goal of this book is to provide an overview of the evolution of multicellularity by way of the types of groups that exist, their evolutionary relationships, processes that led to their origins and advance, and the conceptual frameworks in which they can be understood. In four main sections, veteran contributors review the philosophical issues and theoretical approaches as life arose and came altogether as myriad organisms by way of the evolution of aggregations, clonal assemblies, and developmental unities. (Editors Introduction)

In this chapter, we view future research on the evolution of multicellularity from a range of philosophy, natural history, phylogenetics, biophysics and astrobiology perspectives. We consider further issues such as multicellular life cycles, organismal size and complexity, the origin of development, environmental drivers and niche construction over geological timescales. So there has not been a better time to learn all we can about life’s florescent collective emergence. (Editors: Syntheses and Conclusions)

Merle, Melody, et al. Precise and Scalable Self-Organization in Mammalian Pseudo-Embryos. arXiv:2303.17522. Pasteur Institute, Paris and Princeton University biologists achieve still another instance whereby life’s organic occasion before, and after reproduction proceeds to organize itself. By extension all this procreative fertility could be seen to occur within and due to an inherently natural genesis.

During embryonic development, reproducible gene expression patterns determine cellular fates in time and space, which are crucial in the earliest stages when the body plan and asymmetric body axes emerge. In flies and worms they achieve near-single-cell spatial precision, even for macroscopic patterns. However, we know little about accuracy in mammals. Using an in vitro model for gastruloids, we show that genetic patterns reproduce within 20% in protein concentration variability. Our results reveal precision, reproducibility, and size scaling for mammalian systems, which spontaneously arise in self-organizing cell aggregates and could thus be fundamental features of multicellularity. (Excerpt)

Gomez-Nava, Luis, et al. Fish Shoals Resemble a Stochastic Excitable system Driven by Environmental Perturbations. Nature Physics. May, 2023. Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin Institute of Technology, Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, and Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco, Mexico including Pawel Romanczuk (search) and Jens Krause continue their collegial project by to further quantify nature’s persistent self-organization such that any member/group in motion tends toward an optimum criticality. Whether flock, herd, pod or swarm, the Metazoan lineages from invertebrate slime molds and insects to primates and ourselves are being found to exemplify this universal viability. At the same while, we log Universality of Critical Dynamics with Finite Entanglement in (arXiv:2301.09681, Sherman) about quantum occasions.

Groups of animals can perform coordinated collective behaviours that confer benefits for members by information exchanges and protection from predators. Our interest is that these feature could arise at critical points in structural and functional states which respond best to external stimuli. We cite prior work that these conditions exemplify self-organized systems at criticality, but evidence in the wild is sparse. Here we show repetitive and rhythmic dive cascades under high risk exhibit a stochastic phase driven by environmental perturbations. Together with an agent-based model, such dense schools locate at a critical point between high and low diving activities which allows information to efficiently propagate. (Abstract excerpt)

Siteur, Koen, et al. Phase-separation physics underlies new theory for the resilience of patchy ecosystems. PNAS. 120/2, 2023. A century and six decades later, in our global phase, Dutch and Chinese ecotheorists at last reach the deep roots of “tangled banks” by an integrations with condensed matter phenomena as it actively proceeds through transitional emergences. The second quote goes on to record the consequence of critical states.

Spatial self-organization of ecosystems into large-scales enables diverse organisms to cope with variable environmental conditions and to buffer degradation. Scale-dependent feedbacks have provided a framework for self-organized formations such as arid areas or mussel beds. Here, we cite an alternative approach by way of the complications of a biotic or abiotic basis such as herbivores, sediment, or nutrients. Building on physical theory for phase-separation dynamics, we show that patchy phases are more vulnerable at small spatial scales. By this view, the initiation of coarse aggregations can offer a new indicator to signal tipping points and radical habitat loss.

Our study contributes a better perspective based on self-organized patchiness to understand irregular ecosystems that lack feedbacks associated with spatial Turing patterns and disturbances due to scale-free modes that typify self-organized criticality.

Villegas, Pablo, et al. Evidence of Scale-free Clusters of Vegetation in Tropical Rainforests. arXiv:2301.05917. Into this year, Italian complexity theorists with several postings including Guido Caldarelli provide still more ways to quantify so to untangle and nature’s flora, in this case especially verdant jungles. As we have noted, circa 2002 when the section was first online, there were few efforts like this, any sense of a deep discernible basis hardly existed. Some two decades later, as we have been pleased to report, many contributions like this have indeed revealed an independent, endemic guidance.

Tropical rainforests exhibit a rich repertoire of spatial patterns emerging from intricate relationships between many species and their domain. In regard, the distribution of vegetation clusters can exemplify the underlying process regulating the ecosystem. Analyzing their presence at different resolution scales, we show the first robust evidence of diverse invariant foliage, suggesting the coexistence of multiple intertwined phases in the collective dynamics of tropical rainforests. As a quantified result we propose a predictor that could serve to monitor the ecological resilience of the world's 'green lungs.' (Excerpt edit)

First Peoples. pbs.org/show/first-peoples.. First Peoples is a five-part PBS documentary about the first aired in 2015. It shows how humans reached each continent by way of various fossil discoveries and placing them in a context of pre-modern human migration. The programs include interviews with many of the researchers involved in these studies, such as geneticists Svante Pääbo and Eske Willerslev and anthropologists John D. Hawks and Nicole Waguespack. Five episodes view the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe, which often focus on a major skull and skeletal find.

Life’s Cerebral Faculties Become More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

Potter, Henry and Kevin Mitchell. Naturalising Agent Causation. Entropy. 24/4, 2022. A Trinity College Dublin geneticist and a neuroscientist pick up on the current evolutionary reset whence organisms are no longer passive subjects before selective forces, but self-empowered agents in supportive groupings who can alter and manage external and environmental conditions to their advantage. (If one might then go far afield to a concurrent entry about the cosmologist Renate Loll, this quantum universe is self-organizing in its deepest essence.)

The idea of agent causation — that a living organism can be a cause of things in the world — is often seen at odds with the physicalist thesis that is the core crux of science and philosophy. But into these 202s, we present a framework of eight self-organizing criteria that can overcome the prior issues of agent causality in a naturalistic way: (1) thermodynamic autonomy, (2) persistence, (3) endogenous activity, (4) holistic integration, (5) low-level indeterminacy, (6) multiple realisability, (7) historicity, (8) agent-level normativity. (Excerpt)

To summarise, systems can be agents if they are self-organising and causally insulated enough to persist through time, and out of thermodynamic equilibrium with the environment. To avoid external determinism, they need to be intrinsically active, treating external inputs more as helpful information. The proactivity of these systems entails a holistically integrated structure, in which parts are too interconnected and context-dependent to be understood in a machine-like, decomposable, linear fashion. On top of this, these systems can be driven by meaning and reasons because higher-order organisational patterns are able to coarse-grain over microphysical happenings by virtue of the existence of some degree of indeterminacy at lower levels. (14)

Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

Szocik, Konrad and Rakhat Abylkasymova. Feminism and Gender in Thinking about Extraterrestrial Intelligence. International Journal of Astrobiology. February, 2023. Yale University, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics philosophers show how prior views of life’s celestial expanse can illustrate a masculine sense of a exo-civilizations as combative, alien, enemies, rather than peaceable cultures. We deign to offer an example that "Guardians of the Galaxy" could be amended by "Gardeners of the Galaxy."

In this paper, we offer an outline of a feminist approach to considering the issue of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Dominant ways of discussing ETI, particularly first-contact scenarios and protocols, are characterized by what feminism terms male bias. As with other cultural texts and disciplines, ETI studies can also be enriched by a feminist perspective. In this paper, we propose two possible applications of a feminist approach to considering ETI, such as using feminist categories to analyse our discourse about ETI, as well as understanding ETI in terms of sex and gender. We also propose a vision of ETI as genderless. (Abstract)

Fabbro, Franco, et al. The Nature and Function of Languages. Language. 7/4, 2022. In this MDPI journal, University of Udine, Italy and Free University of Brussels linguists review at length the many features that compose both human and creaturely conveyance. Sections cover Signs, Symbols and Codes (Aristotle to H. Pattee), DNA comparisons (information content), initial Hominid versions in Africa, along with many other aspects which lead to and foster vital intent for personal and social cohesion, or lack thereof. See also an opus book Biological and Neuroscientific Foundations of Philosophy by Franco Fabbro (Routledge, 2023, search).

Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involved in the transmission of information. Paleoanthropology has explored cognitive development and the origin of language in Homo sapiens, from which human beings have formed multiple languages and cultures that favor community socialization but also an increase in aggression between different groups. (Excerpt)

Language is a system for achieving a purpose, namely the construction of a network of psychic individualities that exchange the contents of their imaginations. Since human beings are social organisms, language’s invention and its development were accomplished as collective processes. Individual minds can be viewed as the “nodes” of a metaphorical Web, whereby our dialogue constitutes the software that we “download” into our minds and achieve an imaginative community. (6)

Riberio, Fabiano and Diego Rybski. Mathematical Models to Explain the Origin of Urban Scaling Laws. arXiv:2111.08365. Federal University of Lavras, Brazil and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Germany systems ecologists enter more views about how to appreciation these prevalent human habitations altogether as recurrent complex network emergences.

The quest for a theory of cities that could offer a systematic way to manage them is a top priority, given humanities increasing urbanization. Here, we review the main mathematical models in the literature that seek to explain the origin and emergence of urban scaling, such as similarities and connections between them. The models in this paper obtain different premises from densification, geometry on to a hierarchical organization and socio-network properties. (Excerpt)

Earth Earns: An Open Participatory Earthropocene to Ecosmocene CoCreativity

Dyle, Daniel, et al. Universal Early Warning Signals of Phase Transitions in Climate Systems. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. April, 2023. Seven senior weather theorists including Marten Scheffer, Madhur Anand (whom I heard speak in 2004) and Tim Lenton post a latest analysis about how our hyper-active world weather which is prone to radical abrupt resets to new states because of its nonlinear essence can be much availed by machine learning AI neural net frontiers via a novel global science. One might muse that our lively abode is finding ways to steady, maintain and take steady care of itself, hopefully into an Earthropocene era.

The potential for complex systems to exhibit tipping points in which an equilibrium state undergoes a sudden shift is well known, but their prediction by standard forecast models remains difficult. As a response, alternative methods are being availed that identify critical phenomena in advance of such dynamical bifurcations. A prime finding is that these critical signs are similar for a variety of systems which implies that data-intensive deep learning procedures can be effective. Here we offer a proof as applied to lattice phase transitions via a deep neural network trained on 2D Ising models tested on real and simulated climates with much success. Indicators like this provide novel insights into tipping events, along with as remote sensing on complex geospatially resolved Earth Systems. (Excerpt)

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