5 research outputs found
Are biological systems poised at criticality?
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many
elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many
genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our
thoughts and memories. Physicists have long hoped that these collective
behaviors could be described using the ideas and methods of statistical
mechanics. In the past few years, new, larger scale experiments have made it
possible to construct statistical mechanics models of biological systems
directly from real data. We review the surprising successes of this "inverse"
approach, using examples form families of proteins, networks of neurons, and
flocks of birds. Remarkably, in all these cases the models that emerge from the
data are poised at a very special point in their parameter space--a critical
point. This suggests there may be some deeper theoretical principle behind the
behavior of these diverse systems.Comment: 21 page
Vorentflammung und Klopfen bei Methanolkraftstoffen
TIB Hannover: FR 3214 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman