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COLLOID SWARMS. "The article describes swarm dynamics of a system composed of colloidal particles that release chemical signals to navigate their peers toward the location of a static point target in two dimensions." https://lnkd.in/dQPNQZa View in LinkedIn

SCALING OXYGEN TRANSPORT. "If this were the case, then one would expect to observe an increase of investment in gas exchange structures in larger insects, i.e. hypermetric scaling. This has been observed in tenebrionid beetle trachea." https://lnkd.in/dVziXg3 View in LinkedIn

“SWARM THEORY may be applied to Artificial Chemistry populations of mixed particles or even homogeneous particles. Although the simple agents in most swarms are infinitely more comp,ex than simple chemical agents, there may be some similarities. It may also apply to competing populations of computer code.” https://lnkd.in/dQPNQZa View in LinkedIn

PLUMBING LIMITATIONS. "Why are insects small? In the Paleozoic Era, atmospheric oxygen levels peaked significantly higher than the current level. Along with this oxygen peak came giant insects, many times larger than those currently observed. This suggests that oxygen transport may inhibit insects from becoming giants." https://lnkd.in/dVziXg3 View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX MOLECULES. "SimSoup model that is closer to real chemistry and more open ended. Molecules and the types of Interactions between them are constructed by the model itself using simple rules based on valence theory. Results of a preliminary run of the model are presented. Most of the Molecules produced are of a few simple types with low molecular weight. There is a ‘long tail’ of many low frequency Molecules, many of which are more complex with high molecular weight." https://lnkd.in/dEyx_i7 View in LinkedIn

CHEMICAL CELLS. "They can be organic or inorganic materials or both. If you put them together in a particular way, you can create a system that can take in resources and convert those resources into building blocks for the system to grow and divide. Then if you have information, some kind of guidance for how this division process happens that is inheritable, and if the inheritable information can change from one generation to the next, then you have the possibility for selection." https://lnkd.in/dwADMWc View in LinkedIn

"A PROTOCELL is a physical-chemical implementation of the simplest life form that we can either make or that can emerge spontaneously. I think there are many different ways we can make minimal living systems. Just to be clear, I'm speaking about the transition from nonliving to living materials, where you start out with components that are nonbiological." https://lnkd.in/dwADMWc View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this glimpse into early Earth giganticism in insects, and its relationship to the Great Oxygenation event and subsequent variations in oxygen levels, followed by increasing predatory pressures. One thing it demonstrates is the incredible dynamism of adaptation, where insects can become huge, and then equally quickly scale down to avoid predation. Early life on this Planet was full of surprises. View in LinkedIn

FULL CIRCLE. "Atmospheric oxygen acted effectively as a physiological constraint that limited the size of the largest insects from the Carboniferous to Triassic, but its impacts were superseded by increasingly selective size limitation, likely by flying vertebrate predators following the evolution of birds in the latest Jurassic." https://lnkd.in/dEANyiE View in LinkedIn

BIRDS BECAME BETTER PREDATORS. "The gradual reduction in maximum insect size and extinction of large-bodied groups adapted for gliding flight also coincided with the gradual acquisition of key flight characteristics, such as an alula and fused pygostyle, important for low-speed flight performance and maneuverability, in early birds." https://lnkd.in/dEANyiE View in LinkedIn