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Displaying entries 61 through 75 of 98 found.

Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

Parker, Joseph. Parker, Joseph. Organ Evolution: Emergence of Multicellular Function.. Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology.. June, 2024. As the abstract notes, a CalTech bioengineer contributes new reasons how and why segmented, modular living systems came together for mutual benefit on this course of nested complexity.

Instances of multicellularity across the tree of life have fostered the evolution of complex organs composed of distinct cell types that cooperate and produce emergent biological functions. To study how organs originate I propose a cell- to organ-level transitions framework, whereby a division of labor sets in between cell types by functional niche creation, cell type and ratcheting of cell interdependencies. These discrete components of functional variation may be deployed or combined within cells to introduce new properties into multicellular niches, or partitioned across cells to establish division of labor. (Excerpt)

Madsen, Anastasia and Shermin de Silva. Societies with fission–fusion dynamics as complex adaptive systems: the importance of scale.. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.. July, 2024. This paper in a special Connected interactions: enriching food web research by spatial and social interactions issue by UC San Diego behavioral ecologists is a good example of how the complexity sciences can be applied to foster a new phase of integral understandings. See also herein From nets to networks: tools for deciphering phytoplankton metabolic interactions within communities and their global significance by Charlotte Nef, et al which provides a further network dimension

In this article, we argue that social systems with fission–fusion (FF) dynamics are best characterized within a complex adaptive systems (CAS) framework. We discuss how endogenous and exogenous factors drive scale-dependent network properties across temporal, spatial and social domains. Importantly, this view treats the dynamics themselves as objects of study. CAS theories allow us to interrogate FF activities in taxa that do not conform to prior views of sociality and suggest new questions regarding stability and change in social systems, that would lead to system-level reorganization. (Excerpt)

Reeves, Jonathan, et al. Searching for the earliest archaeological record: insights from chimpanzee material landscapes.. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. August, 2024. JR, Lydia Luncz and Tomos Proffitt, Technological Primates Research Group, MPI Evolutionary Anthropology and Soiret Serge Pacome, Laboratoire de Zoologie et de Biologie Animale, Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa provide a latest detailed recovery of how our primate forebears learned how to make these initial implements.

The origin of tool use is a central issue in human evolutionary studies. Plio-Pleistocene core and flake methods represent the earliest evidence of tool use in the human lineage. Here, we present a landscape-scale study of the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus) material culture from the Djouroutou Chimpanzee Project, Taï Forest, Cote d’Ivoire. This study explores the interplay between behavioural and environmental factors in shaping the stone record of nut cracking. We gain insight into the range of signatures that may be associated with a pre-core and flake archaeological record, providing new expectations for an earlier record of tool use. (Excerpt)

Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

Frank, Steven A.. Circuit design in biology and machine learning.. arXiv:2408.09604.. A latest entry by the UC Irvine evolutionary biologist. See his website for a lifetime stream of insightful papers.

Current biomedicine focuses on the genetic components of cells and their biochemical dynamics. This approach views an emergent complexity, which constrains any micro-intervention in living hardware. Here, I explore a recent complementary field: diverse intelligence, which studies how a wide range of systems reach specific goals. Using tools from behavioral science and multiscale neuroscience, we address development, regenerative repair, and cancer as behaviors of a collective intelligence of cells as it navigates possible morphologies, transcriptional and physiological states.

A biological circuit is a neural or biochemical cascade, taking inputs and producing outputs. This article steps through two classic machine learning models to set the foundation for analyzing broad questions about the design of biological circuits. One observance is the central role of internal models of the environment embedded within biological circuits, illustrated by dimensional reduction and trend prediction. Overall, many challenges in biology have machine learning analogs, suggesting hypotheses about how biology's circuits are designed. (Excerpts)

Goff, Philip. Why? The Purpose of the Universe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. A latest insightful volume by a Durham University, UK philosopher who senses that the real presence of ascendant life and mind in an apparent conducive cosmos must have some intrinsic place and significance.

Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the 'big questions' of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been stuck with the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and new research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life. Ultimately, the work outlines a way of living in hope that some universal creativity is still unfolding, which appears to involve human beings.

Sameul, Sigal. What if absolutely everything is conscious?.. vox.com/future-perfect/353430/what-if-absolutely-everything-is-conscious.. Scientists spent ages mocking panpsychism. Now, some are warming to the idea that plants, cells, and even atoms are conscious. We record this essay because it is a well-researched, wide ranging, sensitive survey of this historic, once and future revision. Along the way the views of Galen Strawson, Audrey Dussutour, Michael Levin and others are considered. An ecosmic consciousness now seems to be dawning, this time with scientific and philosophical groundings as a prime revolutionary basis.

Sigal Samuel is a senior reporter for Vox’s Future Perfect. She writes primarily about the future of consciousness, tracking advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience along with ethical implications. Before joining Vox, Sigal was the religion editor at the Atlantic.

González-Forero, Mauricio. Evolutionary–developmental (evo-devo) dynamics of hominin brain size.. Nature Human Behavior. May, 2024. Since this subject has remained unresolved, a University of St. Andrews biologist draws upon mechanistic modeling to infer that some innate structural limits seem to be in formative effect on beyond selection alone.

  Brain size tripled in the human lineage over four million years, but why this occurred remains uncertain. To study what caused this brain expansion, I mathematically model the evolutionary and developmental (evo-devo) dynamics of hominin brain size. The model recovers (1) the evolution of brain and body sizes of seven hominin species starting from brain and body sizes of the australopithecine scale, (2) the evolution of the hominin brain–body allometry and (3) major patterns of human development and evolution. These findings show that the evolution of adaptive traits may not be primarily caused by selection but by developmental constraints that divert selection. (Excerpt)

Venditti, Chris. et al. Co-evolutionary dynamics of mammalian brain and body size. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 8/8, 2024. University of Reading and Durham University bioanthropologists including Robert Barton (search) describe a latest geometric measurement technique by which to quantify this title timeline. We record to acknowledge and consider.

Despite decades of comparative studies, puzzling aspects of the relationship between mammalian brain and of body mass continue to defy satisfactory explanation. Here we show that several issues arise from fitting log-linear models to the data because, as we argue, the correlated evolution of brain and body mass is in fact log-curvilinear. By way of scaling relationships, we document varying rates of relative brain mass evolution across the mammalian phylogeny. As a result, we find a trend in only three orders, with the strongest in primates as it sets the stage for the rapid directional increase that produced the computational powers of the human brain.

Mitchell, Kevin and Nick Cheney. The Genomic Code: The genome instantiates a generative model of the organism. . . Into 2024, a Trinity College, Dublin neuro-geneticist (search) and a University of Vermont computational biologist (see NC website) propose to join neural net learning methods with views of life’s cognitive emergence, as this section conveys, to advance an integral understanding.

dynamic relationship between the genome and organismal form. Here, we propose a new analogy inspired by machine learning and neuroscience whence the genome becomes a compressed space of latent variables which are DNA sequences that specify the biochemical properties of encoded proteins. Collectively, these comprise a connectionist network that is encoded by an evolutionary learning algorithm. An energy landscape then constrains a self-organising development so as to produce a new individual, akin to Conrad Waddington’s epigenetic landscape. (Abstract)

Rosslenbroich, Bernd, et al. Agency as an Inherent Property of Living Organisms. Biological Theory.. August, 2024. Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Morphology Centre, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany contribute a current, definitive explanation and endorsement of manifest evolutionary scales and degrees of personal, proactive liberties all the way to ourselves.

A central characteristic of living organisms is their intrinsic activity with regard to basic life processes and behavior in the environment. While some debate goes on, we contend that such agency is immanent in living organisms. In regard, we identify several organismic levels to capture different qualities that occur or transform during evolution. An example is an ontogenetic level of directed agency that includes preconceived goals. An enhanced physiological and behavioral autonomy then extends the evolutionary scope of self-generated, flexible actions and reactions.

Kershenbaum, Arik. Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication. New York: Penguin Books, 2024. As the quote says, the author has traveled the world to hear creatures what creatures great and small have to say and in what way.

Why Animals Talk is an exhilarating journey through the untamed world of animal communication. Following his international bestseller, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, the author draws on extensive original research to reveal how many of the creaturely signals are in fact logical and consistent and not that different from our own. From the majestic howls of wolves and the enchanting chatter of parrots to the melodic clicks of dolphins and the spirited grunts of chimpanzees, these often strange expressions hold secrets that we are just beginning to decipher.

Dr. Arik Kershenbaum is a zoologist at Girton College, University of Cambridge. He has done extensive fieldwork on animal communication has decoded the whistles of dolphins among the coral reefs of the Red Sea, the songs of gibbons in the jungles of Vietnam and the songs of hyraxes in the mountains of the Galilee.

Liao, Diana, et al. Crows “count” the number of self-generated vocalizations... Science. 384/6698, 2024. As innate abilities to enumerate become evident all the way to insects, University of Tübingen neurobiologists quantify their presence in this avain species. See also Corvids optimize working memory by categorizing continuous stimuli by Aylin Apostel, et al in Communications Biology (6/1122, 2023) and Looks like home: numerosity, but not spatial frequency guides pre ference in zebrafish larvae by Adam, Elizabeth Adam, et al in Animal Cognition (July 2024).