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Related Concept Videos

Characteristics of Life01:23

Characteristics of Life

Biology is a natural science that studies life and living organisms, including their structure, function, development, interactions, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. The field's scope is extensive and divided into several specialized disciplines, such as anatomy, physiology, ethology, genetics, and many more. All living things share a few key traits, including cellular organization, heritable genetic material and the ability to adapt/evolve, metabolism to regulate energy needs, the...
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Levels of Organization

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A living cell's primary tasks of obtaining, transforming, and using energy to do work may seem simple. However, the second law of thermodynamics explains why these tasks are harder than they appear. None of the energy transfers in the universe are completely efficient. In every energy transfer, some amount of energy is lost in a form that is unusable. In most cases, this form is heat energy. Thermodynamically, heat energy is defined as the energy transferred from one system to another that is...
Non-equilibrium in the Cell01:16

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An important concept in studying metabolism and energy is that of chemical equilibrium. Most chemical reactions are reversible. They can proceed in both directions, releasing energy into their environment in one direction, and absorbing it from the environment in the other direction. The same is true for the chemical reactions involved in cell metabolism, such as the breaking down and building up of proteins into and from individual amino acids, respectively. Reactants within a closed system...
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The most common elements in organic molecules, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus, are only available in the ecosystem in limited amounts. Therefore, these nutrients must be recycled through both biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem, in processes generally called biogeochemical cycles.

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Quantification of Information Encoded by Gene Expression Levels During Lifespan Modulation Under Broad-range Dietary Restriction in C. elegans
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Living is information processing: from molecules to global systems.

Keith D Farnsworth1, John Nelson, Carlos Gershenson

  • 1School of Biological Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK. k.farnsworth@qub.ac.uk

Acta Biotheoretica
|March 5, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Life is fundamentally an information processing phenomenon, perpetuating itself through molecular and ecological memory. This study quantifies functional information across all life scales, integrating it with the physical universe.

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Area of Science:

  • Biophysics
  • Systems Biology
  • Information Theory

Background:

  • Life can be conceptualized as an information processing phenomenon across all organizational levels.
  • Existing models focus on nucleic acid coding for memory, overlooking broader molecular and ecological states.
  • A unified framework is needed to explain information processing and functional information across diverse biological scales.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To extend the concept of life as an information processing phenomenon.
  • To introduce and quantify 'functional information' across molecular to ecological levels.
  • To integrate information theory with biological organization and the physical universe.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual extension of information theory to biological systems.
  • Development of a framework for 'functional information' based on mutual context and persistent consequences.
  • Methodological proposal for quantifying functional information from molecular to ecological scales.

Main Results:

  • Living organisms process information, maintaining memory through molecular and ecological states.
  • The primary function of this information processing is self-perpetuation.
  • Functional information emerges from synthesized lower-level information, creating complex systems and life functions.

Conclusions:

  • Life is an information processing phenomenon, with self-perpetuation as its core function.
  • Functional information can be quantified across all biological organizational levels, from molecules to ecosystems.
  • This information-centric view integrates life seamlessly with the physical universe.