Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Complexity of Evolution | Wired Science | Wired.com

The Complexity of Evolution | Wired Science | Wired.com: "The Complexity of Evolution

* By Brandon Keim Email Author
* April 15, 2008 |
* 9:39 am |
* Categories: Uncategorized
*

Complexity

Scientists usually study natural selection at a single level, such as genes or individuals or even a population, says biophysical complexity researcher Maya Paczuski — but it takes place at all these levels simultaneously, and what happens at each scale resonates through the web of life in ways we’re just beginning to comprehend.

I talked to Paczuski, founder of the University of Calgary’s Complexity
Science Group, for a recent Wired.com story on the expansion of evolutionary theory to include complexity and emergence. These phenomena don’t replace the classic mechanisms of genetic mutation and natural selection, but work with them; and accompanying this expanded conception of evolution is the multi-scale perspective espoused by
Paczuski."

Evolution as Biological Thermodynamics | Wired Science | Wired.com

Evolution as Biological Thermodynamics | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Evolution as Biological Thermodynamics

* By Brandon Keim Email Author
* February 13, 2008 |
* 10:56 am |
* Categories: Uncategorized
*

Darwin213
When Guy Hoelzer runs computer simulations of organisms living in the modeling equivalent of a featureless plain, he sees them break into different species — even though there’s no reason for natural selection to take place.

That preliminary but tantalizing finding hints at some larger phenomenon driving the mechanisms of neo-Darwinian evolution. Hoelzer thinks the phenomenon is self-organization: combine energy with complex networked interaction and order will emerge.

In the abstract of 'On the logical relationship between natural selection and self-organization,' published in 2006 in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, he described natural selection as 'a mechanism that coordinates the coevolution of species in an ecosystem to effectively capture, process and dissipate solar energy into the earth’s shadow … an emergent process founded on the same thermodynamic imperatives that are thought to underlie all self-organization.'"

Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life | Wired Science | Wired.com

Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Microbe May Answer Mystery of Multicellular Life

* By Brandon Keim Email Author
* July 8, 2008 |
* 1:40 pm |
* Categories: Uncategorized
*

Sponges

You may owe the complexity of your 100-trillion-celled body to the ancestors of a primitive microbe called Monisiga brevicollis.

Described in two studies published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, M. brevicollis possesses one of the most the most elaborate sets of cellular signaling genes ever found.

The microbe’s communications mechanisms could prove a critical piece in the puzzle of how single-celled organisms — the only form taken by Earthly life for three billion years — combined into many-celled creatures.

That jump has confounded scientists and inspired critics of evolution, who insist that mutation and natural selection alone are too incremental to explain such a dramatic transition."

Complexity Theory in Icky Action: Meet the Slime Mold | Wired Science | Wired.com

Complexity Theory in Icky Action: Meet the Slime Mold | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Complexity Theory in Icky Action: Meet the Slime Mold

* By Brandon Keim Email Author
* February 15, 2008 |
* 7:00 am |
* Categories: Animals
*

Slime_mold_undermulch There are few creatures more remarkable than the lowly slime mold.

But is the slime mold really a creature? Or is it a fungus? If it’s not a fungus, is it a single entity — or millions? Or both?

Hence its remarkability."

Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System | Wired Science | Wired.com

Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System | Wired Science | Wired.com: "Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System

* By Laura Sanders, Science News Email Author
* January 22, 2010 |
* 2:56 pm |
* Categories: Biology
*

slime_mold_1

Talented and dedicated engineers spent countless hours designing Japan’s rail system to be one of the world’s most efficient. Could have just asked a slime mold."