Search Results for lifes-ratchet

Science

Life s Ratchet

Grounded in Hoffmann's own cutting-edge research, Life's Ratchet reveals the incredible findings of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of how the noisy world of atoms gives rise to life itself.

Author: Peter M Hoffmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9780465033362

Category: Science

Page: 288

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Life is an enduring mystery. Yet, science tells us that living beings are merely sophisticated structures of lifeless molecules. If this view is correct, where do the seemingly purposeful motions of cells and organisms originate? In Life's Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale. Below the calm, ordered exterior of a living organism lies microscopic chaos, or what Hoffmann calls the molecular storm -- specialized molecules immersed in a whirlwind of colliding water molecules. Our cells are filled with molecular machines, which, like tiny ratchets, transform random motion into ordered activity, and create the "purpose" that is the hallmark of life. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, nanoscale factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city -- an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular workers working together to create something greater than themselves. Life, Hoffman argues, emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through these sophisticated structures of our evolved machinery. We are agglomerations of interacting nanoscale machines more amazing than anything in science fiction. Rather than relying on some mysterious "life force" to drive them -- as people believed for centuries -- life's ratchets harness instead the second law of thermodynamics and the disorder of the molecular storm. Grounded in Hoffmann's own cutting-edge research, Life's Ratchet reveals the incredible findings of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of how the noisy world of atoms gives rise to life itself.
2012-10-30 By Peter M Hoffmann
Nature

Life s Engines

Princeton University Press. A textbook that describes the fundamentals of photosynthesis from both mechanistic and evolutionary perspectives. Not for the faint-hearted. Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos.

Author: Paul G. Falkowski

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9780691173351

Category: Nature

Page: 224

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The stewards of Earth, these organisms transformed the chemistry of our planet to make it habitable for plants, animals, and us.
2016-12-06 By Paul G. Falkowski
Philosophy

The Moral Philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe

... there stands the title of his book, Life's Ratchet, and its subtitle How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos, and equally there stands almost everything in the book's scientific substance—you can open it at random and find ...

Author: Luke Gormally

Publisher: Andrews UK Limited

ISBN: 9781845409036

Category: Philosophy

Page: 345

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Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 essay ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ contributed to the transformation of the subject from the late 1960s, reversing the trend to assume that there is no intrinsic connection between facts, values, and reasons for action; and directing attention towards the category of virtues. Her later ethical writings were focused on particular ideas and issues such as those of conscience, double-effect, murder, and sexual ethics. In this collection of new essays deriving from a conference held in Oxford these and other aspects of her moral philosophy are examined. Anyone interested in Anscombe’s work all want to read this volume.
2016-03-17 By Luke Gormally
Computers

Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation

Physica D 42, 335–346 (1990) Hoffmann, P.M.: Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos, 1st edn. Basic Books. A Member of the Perseus Books Group, New York (2012) Ichihashi, N., Matsuura, T., Kita, H., Sunami, T., ...

Author: Marcello Pelillo

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9783319786582

Category: Computers

Page: 323

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This book constitutes the revised selected papers of the 12th Italian Workshop on Advances in Artificial Life, Evolutionary Computation, WIVACE 2017, held in Venice, Italy, in September 2017.The 23 full papers presented were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. They cover the following topics: physical-chemical phenomena; biological systems; economy and society; complexity; optimization.
2018-04-02 By Marcello Pelillo
Science

The Seeds of Life

Spectators vomited and fainted: Ashcroft, Spark of Life, 29. ... “Mary Shelley and Her Circle,” in A Life with Mary Shelley, and Stott, The Poet and the Vampyre. ... In one painstaking experiment: Hoffmann, Life's Ratchet, 30.

Author: Edward Dolnick

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9780465094967

Category: Science

Page: 320

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Why cracking the code of human conception took centuries of wild theories, misogynist blunders, and ludicrous mistakes Throughout most of human history, babies were surprises. People knew the basics: men and women had sex, and sometimes babies followed. But beyond that the origins of life were a colossal mystery. The Seeds of Life is the remarkable and rollicking story of how a series of blundering geniuses and brilliant amateurs struggled for two centuries to discover where, exactly, babies come from. Taking a page from investigative thrillers, acclaimed science writer Edward Dolnick looks to these early scientists as if they were detectives hot on the trail of a bedeviling and urgent mystery. These strange searchers included an Italian surgeon using shark teeth to prove that female reproductive organs were not 'failed' male genitalia, and a Catholic priest who designed ingenious miniature pants to prove that frogs required semen to fertilize their eggs. A witty and rousing history of science, The Seeds of Life presents our greatest scientists struggling-against their perceptions, their religious beliefs, and their deep-seated prejudices-to uncover how and where we come from.
2017-06-06 By Edward Dolnick
Science

A New Map of Wonders

casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20100036717.pdf Goodsell, David S., 2009, The Machinery of Life, Springer Hazen, Robert, 2005, ... Hoffman, Peter H., 2012, Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos, Basic Books Hooke, Robert, ...

Author: Caspar Henderson

Publisher: Granta Books

ISBN: 9781783781362

Category: Science

Page:

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A New Map of Wonders charts a course through the realm of the fascinating and awe-inspiring. With the curiosity and enthusiasm of a great explorer, the award-winning Caspar Henderson celebrates and explains the wonder of light and the origins of the universe, the myriad marvels of the human body and the natural world -- and reveals the wonders to come: the technologies that will transform human experience and change what we will find wonderful. Drawing on philosophy and natural history, art and religion, neuroscience and nanotechnology, A New Map of Wonders is a celebration of life -- a rich and inspiring guide, encouraging us to see the world anew.
2017-10-26 By Caspar Henderson
Science

Evolution and Transitions in Complexity

Only by knowing and understanding how chemosynthetic life first emerged and, from a branch of this life, how oxygenic ... Am Mineral 93(11–12):1693–1720 Hoffmann PM (2012) Life's ratchet: how molecular machines extract order from chaos.

Author: Gerard A.J.M Jagers op Akkerhuis

Publisher: Springer

ISBN: 9783319438023

Category: Science

Page: 295

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This book discusses several recent theoretic advancements in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary integration in the field of evolution. While exploring novel views, the text maintains a close link with one of the most broadly held views on evolution, namely that of “Darwinian evolution.” This work puts forth a new point of view which allows researchers to define in detail the concept of evolution. To create this conceptual definition, the text applies a stringent object-based focus. With this focus, the editor has been able to develop an object-based pattern of evolution at the smallest scale. Subsequently, this smallest scale pattern is used as an innovative basis for generalizations. These generalizations create links between biological Darwinism and generalized Darwinism. The object-based approach that was used to suggest innovations in the field of Darwinian evolution also allowed for contributions to other topics, such as major evolutionary transitions theory, the definition of life and the relationships between evolution, self-organization and thermodynamics. Together, the chapters of this book and the multidisciplinary reflections and comments of various specialists on these chapters offer an exciting palette of innovative ideas.
2016-10-18 By Gerard A.J.M Jagers op Akkerhuis
Science

The Demon in the Machine

How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life Paul Davies ... 'Brownian ratchets and Parrondo's games', Chaos, 11, 705 (2001); doi: 10.1063/1.1395623 Peter Hoffman, Life's Ratchet (Basic Books, 2012) —, 'How molecular ...

Author: Paul Davies

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

ISBN: 9780226669700

Category: Science

Page: 259

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What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery. In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe. From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine journeys across an astounding landscape of cutting-edge science. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window onto the secret of life itself.
2019-10-16 By Paul Davies
Science

On the Origin of Tepees

Prokaryotes had the monopoly on Life on Earth until a new single-cell organism evolved that had bubbles of oily ... Originally, this gas was extremely rare on Earth, but an earlier set of teeth on Life's ratchet had changed all that.

Author: Jonnie Hughes

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

ISBN: 9781439110249

Category: Science

Page: 320

View: 972

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We humans pride ourselves on our capacity to have ideas, but perhaps this pride is misplaced. Perhaps ideas have us. After all, ideas do appear to have a life of their own. Many biologists have already come to the opinion that our genes are selfish entities, tricking us into helping them to reproduce. Is it the same with our ideas? Jonnie Hughes, a science writer and documentary filmmaker, investigates the evolution of ideas in order to find out. Adopting the role of a cultural Charles Darwin, Hughes heads off, with his brother in tow, across the Midwest to observe firsthand the natural history of ideas--the patterns of their variation, inheritance, and selection in the cultural landscape. In place of Darwin's oceanic islands, Hughes visits the "mind islands" of Native American tribes. Instead of finches, Hughes searches for signs of natural selection among the tepees.--From publisher description.
2012-06-19 By Jonnie Hughes
Science

First Steps in the Origin of Life in the Universe

But Darwinism kicks in only after life gets going; it cannot be used to explain the origin of life. ... The relevance of this discussion to life is that Darwinian evolution is an example of a ratchet, because advantageous random changes ...

Author: Julian Chela-Flores

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

ISBN: 9789401010177

Category: Science

Page: 428

View: 386

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Proceedings of the Sixth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution, Trieste, Italy, 18-22 September 2000
2011-06-28 By Julian Chela-Flores

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