Chiral Dualism as a Unifying Principle in Molecular Biophysics

Metabolic cost as a unifying principle governing neuronal biophysics.

The brain contains an astonishing diversity of neurons, each expressing only one set of ion channels out of the billions of potential channel combinations. Simple organizing principles are required for us to make sense of this abundance of possibilities and wealth of related data. We suggest that energy minimization subject to functional constraints may be one such unifying principle. We compar...

Optimal Vortex Formation as a Unifying Principle in Biological Propulsion

I review the concept of optimal vortex formation and examine its relevance to propulsion in biological and bio-inspired systems, ranging from the human heart to underwater vehicles. By using examples from the existing literature and new analyses, I show that optimal vortex formation can potentially serve as a unifying principle to understand the diversity of solutions used to achieve propulsion...

Partial Safety of Formulas as a Unifying Foundational Principle

Simplicity: a unifying principle in cognitive science?

Much of perception, learning and high-level cognition involves finding patterns in data. But there are always infinitely many patterns compatible with any finite amount of data. How does the cognitive system choose 'sensible' patterns? A long tradition in epistemology, philosophy of science, and mathematical and computational theories of learning argues that patterns 'should' be chosen accordin...

Molecular Biophysics

This book is a collection of review papers presented at a meeting held at Squaw Valley, California in the summer of 1964. Most of them are concerned with methods of chemical physics as applied to biological problems. The exception is an excellent article on molecular genetics by F. Gros, entitled "The Cell Machinery." It does not include, however, the recent work on the genetic code by Khorana....