Biology
Books
- Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines, Evelyn Fox Keller, 2002, Harvard University Press.
- The Century of the Gene, Evelyn Fox Keller, 2000, Harvard University Press.
- Evelyn Fox Keller writes well and is worth reading. As an aside her research included showing that slime mold clusters by a process of self (continuing some work done by Alan Turing).
- How the Immune System Works 2nd Edition, Lauren Sompayrac, 2003, Blackwell Publishing.
- Swarm Intelligence: From Natural to Artificial Systems, Eric Bonabeau, Marco Dorigo & Guy Theraulaz, 1999, Oxford University Press.
- Self-Organization in Biological Systems, Scott Camazine, Jean-Louis Deneubourg, Nigel R. Franks, James Sneyd, Guy Theraulaz & Eric Bonabeau, 2001, Princeton University Press.
- Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology, Ricard Sole & Brian Goodwin, 2000, Basic Books.
- Two SFI researchers discuss chaos & emergent phenomena
Robustness
Several papers by David of SFI are worth reading:
- Krakauer, D.C. & Plotkin, J. Principles and parameters of molecular robustness. In: E. Jen (ed.) Robust design: a repertoire for Biology, Ecology and Engineering, Oxford University Press. (2004)
- Krakauer, D.C. Robustness in Biological Systems: a provisional taxonomy. In: Complex Systems Science in Biomedicine. Kluwer. (2004)
Chemotaxis
The protein network responsible for chemotaxis governs the migration of bacteria, like E. coli, towards chemical attractants and away from repellents by translating temporal changes in the level of chemical stimuli into a modulation of the cell's swimming direction. It does this in a robust way over a large range of sensory input.
Network Self-Organizatiion
- The segment polarity network is a robust developmental module George von Dassow, Eli Meir, Edwin M. Munro & Garrett M. Odell, University of Washington, Department of Zoology, Nature, Vol 46, July 13, 2000, pp 188-192.
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