Month: September 2022

"PARASITIC COMPUTING is a twist on the distributed computing paradigm whereby a parasite computer extracts computational cycles unbeknownst to the host system." https://lnkd.in/dh6PrEg View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues from last weekend and concludes this weekend on the theme of coevolution. Entanglement in physics has taught us that interconnection is a fundamental property of matter at the level of particles. Ecology in biology has taught is that interconnection is how ecosystems are constructed. Coevolution is simply interconnection on the axis of time, where the observer affects the observed in profound ways. View in LinkedIn

WILDLY DIFFERENT OUTCOMES POSSIBLE. "The models predict that co-evolution can occur under a wide range of conditions, but that many different outcomes are possible: stable polymorphisms; dynamic polymorphisms with cyclic or chaotic fluctuations in allele frequencies of varying amplitude; unstable cycles leading to fixation; or selective sweeps of favorable alleles to fixation." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

FITNESS ALLELE UPRISING. "A selective sweep is the reduction or elimination of variation among the nucleotides in neighboring DNA of a mutation as the result of the recent fixation of a beneficial allele due to strong positive natural selection. A selective sweep can occur when a rare or previously non-existing allele that increases the fitness of the carrier relative to other members of the population increases rapidly in frequency due to natural selection." https://lnkd.in/dyTEN5R View in LinkedIn

SLOW FIXATION. "Selective sweeps occur when new alleles appear, by mutation or migration, and eventually become fixed in the population. These result in transient polymorphisms, although the process of fixation may be slow." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

PERSISTENCE. "Dynamic polymorphisms involve fluctuations in allele frequencies caused by selection and are inherently persistent, although fixation can occur as a result of genetic drift." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE. "Having multiple hosts may mean reduced selection pressure for a pathogen to co-evolve with any one host. If a pathogen can more easily evolve infectivity to a novel host than evade the resistance selected for in an existing host, this favors host switching." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

HOST SWITCHING. "Although empirical support for this comes from brood parasites rather than pathogens, many viruses can exploit different host cell receptors, and this can be associated with host switching, thereby demonstrating a potential for co-evolution involving multiple host species. But only certain pathogens may be capable of infecting multiple hosts; for example, viruses that use receptors conserved across different host taxa tend to have broader host ranges." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

DEEP INTERCONNECTEDNESS. "Clearly, a host population cannot evolve in response to selection pressure from one pathogen population without affecting the selection pressures imposed by other pathogens, and a pathogen population cannot evolve in response to selection pressure from one host population without affecting the selection pressures imposed by other host populations." https://lnkd.in/d3-W8NW View in LinkedIn

BOOSTING EVOLVABILITY IN HOSTS. "We demonstrated that coevolution promotes complexity and dissected how it does so. Instead of simple escalation, we found that a diversity of coevolving lineages must arise for coevolution to drive complex traits. Surprisingly, coevolution had a second effect; it promoted the evolution of more evolvable hosts." (In silico modeling). https://lnkd.in/dUUFYJe View in LinkedIn