Schrödinger [Schrödinger, E., 1944. What is Life? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge]
marvelled at how the organism is able to use metabolic energy to maintain and even …

Accepted 21 September 2012 689 This journal is q 2012 The Royal Society with the systems
treated by statistical mechanics. However, a simple transition from a disordered to an …

System-wide indicators of ecosystem structure and function depend strongly on the choice of
flow variable, or numeraire. I compare two such indicators, exergy and ascendency, using …

Repeat proteins are composed of tandem structural modules in which close contacts do not
extend beyond adjacent repeats. Despite the local nature of these close contacts, repeat …

Coordination comes in many guises and represents one of the most striking, but least
understood features of living things. The different forms that coordination takes and how it …

Organisms are so enigmatic from the thermodynamic point of view that Lord Kelvin,
coinventor of the Second Law of thermodynamics, specifically excluded them from its …

At concentrations near the maximum allowed by steric repulsion, swimming bacteria form a
dynamical state exhibiting extended spatiotemporal coherence. The viscous fluid into which …

Negentropy explored by Schrödinger for saving biology within thermodynamics stands firm
on the perpetual temporal cohesion of material origin. The temporal cohesion refers to the …

Humans and other creatures display remarkable interorganism coordination. For ecological
theorists, interorganism coordination poses a challenge because it appears to be an …

The evolution of multicellular eukaryotes expresses two sorts of adaptations: local
adaptations like fur or feathers, which characterize species in particular environments, and …