info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Life at the edge: Complexity and criticality in biological function
Fecha
2018-12Registro en:
Chialvo, Dante Renato; Life at the edge: Complexity and criticality in biological function; Polish Academy of Sciences. Institute of Physics; Acta Physica Polonica B; 49; 12; 12-2018; 1955-1979
0587-4254
1509-5770
CONICET Digital
CONICET
Autor
Chialvo, Dante Renato
Resumen
Why life is complex and - most importantly - what is the origin of the over abundance of complexity in nature? This is a fundamental scientific question which, paraphrasing the late Per Bak, “is screaming to be answered but seldom is even being asked”. In this article, we review recent attempts across several scales to understand the origins of complex biological problems from the perspective of critical phenomena. To illustrate the approach, three cases are discussed, namely the large scale brain dynamics, the characterization of spontaneous fluctuations of proteins, and the physiological complexity of the cell mitochondria network.