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STRUCTURED POPULATIONS. "Due to limited pathogen dispersion, hosts can benefit from the local decrease in pathogen abundance produced by their neighbors’ adaptive immunity. In a structured population, neighboring hosts are phenotypically correlated, reinforcing the advantage of adaptive immunity and contributing to its fixation. This effect could allow fixation of adaptive immunity even under conditions where the cost-benefit balance is not in its favor." https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

"ADAPTIVE IMMUNITY provides a direct benefit to the host organism that possesses the immune mechanism and thus does not require population structure to evolve. There are, however, instances when population structure favors fixation of adaptive immunity through a mechanism analogous to the one observed for altruistic suicide." https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

INHIBITORS OF HOST DEATH. "Numerous viruses indeed have evolved mechanisms preventing host cell death, often by recruiting genes involved in host suicide and turning them into competitive inhibitors of cell death or else via repair of the damage involved in cell death." Cunning strategy. https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

"REDUCED VIRULENCE is the most likely evolutionary outcome under conditions of low pathogen dispersal, whereas intermediate dispersal rates can lead to high virulence. It is therefore plausible that, in structured populations, the host-pathogen arms race has a major effect on the genes involved in cell death and its inhibition." https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

SUICIDE AVERSION. "It has been shown that experimental evolution of phages under conditions of local dispersion leads to ‘prudent’ (less virulent) variants of the virus, in contrast to the virulent forms evolved in a well-mixed environment." https://lnkd.in/d9zsv9R View in LinkedIn

HOD LIPSON "has co-authored over 200 papers and speaks frequently at high-profile venues such as TED and the National Academies. Hod directs the Creative Machines Lab, which pioneers new ways to make machines that create, and machines that are creative." https://lnkd.in/drCTazE View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this contemplation of the relationship between pathogens and their hosts, and the balancing act between pathogen virulence and reproductive dispersal versus the evasive measures of the host including increased immunity and suicide, which reduce pathogen dispersal. This dance has gone on in parasite-host relationships in some form forever. At some level, the populations of both host and parasite have a meta-awareness of fecundity and costs, and these are brought to bear on the individual. An intriguing dance that reveals a lot about Nature. View in LinkedIn

PROFESSOR HOD LIPSON and others have taken a unique slant to evolving artificial life: keep the limited human imagination out of the process and let the physical universe effect evolution in very surprising and original ways. It is only a matter of time before computer viruses go mainstream with this approach: no programmer input in these mutations. View in LinkedIn

THE HOPE. 'If we have a system that can organize itself or can evolve in some sense, then the hope is that down the road the system, without any thought or care on our part, will become intelligent.'' https://lnkd.in/d8uZSVQ View in LinkedIn

FRACTAL GEOMETRY. "No one knows just how such rules are encoded in the genes of real plants; nevertheless, several demonstrations at Los Alamos created lifelike ferns, trees and even flowers from relatively modest fractal instructions." https://lnkd.in/d8uZSVQ View in LinkedIn