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Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems
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ISBN: 0691134049 1299991211 0691122407 1400849381 9781400849383 9780691134048 9780691122403 Year: 2013 Publisher: Princeton, NJ

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Abstract

All living things are remarkably complex, yet their DNA is unstable, undergoing countless random mutations over generations. Despite this instability, most animals do not grow two heads or die, plants continue to thrive, and bacteria continue to divide. Robustness and Evolvability in Living Systems tackles this perplexing paradox. The book explores why genetic changes do not cause organisms to fail catastrophically and how evolution shapes organisms' robustness. Andreas Wagner looks at this problem from the ground up, starting with the alphabet of DNA, the genetic code, RNA, and protein molecules, moving on to genetic networks and embryonic development, and working his way up to whole organisms. He then develops an evolutionary explanation for robustness. Wagner shows how evolution by natural selection preferentially finds and favors robust solutions to the problems organisms face in surviving and reproducing. Such robustness, he argues, also enhances the potential for future evolutionary innovation. Wagner also argues that robustness has less to do with organisms having plenty of spare parts (the redundancy theory that has been popular) and more to do with the reality that mutations can change organisms in ways that do not substantively affect their fitness. Unparalleled in its field, this book offers the most detailed analysis available of all facets of robustness within organisms. It will appeal not only to biologists but also to engineers interested in the design of robust systems and to social scientists concerned with robustness in human communities and populations.


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Paradoxical life
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ISBN: 1282351605 9786612351600 0300156375 9780300156379 0300149239 9780300149234 9781282351608 9780300149234 Year: 2009 Publisher: New Haven Yale University Press

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What can a fingernail tell us about the mysteries of creation? In one sense, a nail is merely a hunk of mute matter, yet in another, it's an information superhighway quite literally at our fingertips. Every moment, streams of molecular signals direct our cells to move, flatten, swell, shrink, divide, or die. Andreas Wagner's ambitious new book explores this hidden web of unimaginably complex interactions in every living being. In the process, he unveils a host of paradoxes underpinning our understanding of modern biology, contradictions he considers gatekeepers at the frontiers of knowledge.Though we tend to think of concepts in such mutually exclusive pairs as mind-matter, self-other, and nature-nurture, Wagner argues that these opposing ideas are not actually separate. Indeed, they are as inextricably connected as the two sides of a coin. Through a tour of modern biological marvels, Wagner illustrates how this paradoxical tension has a profound effect on the way we define the world around us. Paradoxical Life is thus not only a unique account of modern biology. It ultimately serves a radical-and optimistic-outlook for humans and the world we help create.


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Building Better - Less - Different: Clean Energy Transition and Digital Transformation
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ISBN: 9783035621174 9783035627176 Year: 2023 Publisher: Basel

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"The clean energy transition and the digital transformation are essential components of a fundamental change towards circular construction with significantly lower impacts on environment and climate. Building design and construction measures become part of a holistic energy concept spanning the entire life cycle. Digital construction technologies provide a reinterpretation of natural building materials. Mass customization of tailor-made building components minimizes resource consumption. These are foundations for a profound transformation of the architecture, construction and engineering industries"

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