Evolutionary Dynamics and Information Hierarchies in Biological Systems: Aspen Center for Physics Workshop. Organisms use a variety of mechanisms to store, interpret, and use information that is organized in a large and complex hierarchy from DNA sequences, to chromatin regulation, to intra/extracellular signaling, to tissue/organ organization, to the interactions between organisms and species. This Annals volume presents individual papers and a summarizing meeting report stemming from a workshop at the Aspen Center for Physics in Aspen, Colorado, organized to discuss these issues. The three themed weeks of the workshop focused on the organization of DNA into chromatin, epigenetic adaptation and host/pathogen interaction, and macroevolution. Although these areas represent a wide breadth of biological phenomena, several unifying themes emerged through workshop discussions. In particular, the differences between the simplicity of our theoretical models and the complex interactions characteristic of real physical systems were repeatedly highlighted. Workshop discussions therefore pointed to key areas where theory and observations should aim to converge as we refine our understanding of evolution. Evolutionary dynamics and information hierarchies in biological systems: Aspen Center for Physics Workshop
Evolutionary dynamics and information hierarchies in biological systems
In Darwinian evolution, feedback from natural selection leads to biased mutations
Establishing epigenetic domains via chromatin-bound histone modifiers
The molecular basis for the development of neural maps
Cracking the neural code: third annual Aspen Brain Forum
In vivo robotics: the automation of neuroscience and other intact-system biological fields
Vision: are models of object recognition catching up with the brain?
Long-range connectomics
Douglas Braaten is the editor of Evolutionary Dynamics and Information Hierarchies in Biological Systems, published by Wiley.
