Statistical Physics of Biocomplexity

Biology and physics share common ancestors. The progress of methods of statistical physics and the developments of new physical tools and various ingenious experimental techniques have triggered dramatic progress for the field of biophysics. Likewise, the two fields fertilized each other repeatedly over the last decades. Most import antly, the complexity of biophysics inspired new developments in physics and chemical physics. In this contribution, we focus on some recent problems that attracted the interest of many statistical physicists. Biological cells contain nanoscale machineries that exhibit a unique combination of high efficiency, high reliability and recognition features and self-assembly properties. Most importantly, these biological machines transport material and perform work in a noisy environment. Here, we will elaborate on the constructive role of noise for the amplification and enhanced detection of weak information-carrying signals (Stochastic Resonance in Biology) and directed transport of vesicles and the like (Brownian Motors in Biology). Quantum statistical physics enters the biological complexity at the interface of electronic transport processes and the interaction with light. In this context, physicists and chemists have become increasingly interested in the electronic properties of the »molecule of life«, the DNA. We will comment on the present hot debate whether quantum electronic transport in DNA behaves more like a good molecular wire or whether DNA behaves more like an insulator.