000			02998nam a22003497a 4500
003			IIITD
005			20250430151241.0
008			230303s2023 nyu 000 0 eng
020			_a9780192871947
040			_aIIITD
082			_a576.3 _bBRA-L
100	1		_aBrazma, Alvis
245	1	0	_aLiving computers : _breplicators, information processing, and the evolution of life _cby Alvis Brazma
260			_aNew York : _bOxford University Press, _c©2023
300			_axiii, 306 p. : _bcol. ill. ; _c26 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references and index
505			_t1. How to clone oneself?
505			_t2. Self-organizing molecules
505			_t3. Informed self-organization
505			_t4. The simplest life
505			_t5. Evolving replicators
505			_t6. Life on earth
505			_t7. Evolution as a ratchet of information
505			_t8. From DNA to language
505			_t9. Epilogue: beyond language
520			_a"This book explores life as an information processing phenomenon. I posit that life and the recording of information emerged together inextricably linked and that nothing is as central to life, as its ability to record, communicate, and process information. For most of the last several billion years, almost all nonredundant durable information that has existed on Earth has been stored in DNA. As life on Earth was evolving, information in DNA was accumulating, at least at early stages of evolution. A few hundred thousand years ago, human language emerged, and for the first time, large amounts of information started accumulating also outside DNA. The emergence of language triggered evolutionary mechanisms different from, and faster than biological evolution, namely, cultural evolution. Most likely, information is now growing faster in the world's libraries and computer clouds than in the genomes of all species on Earth taken together. The emergence of human language was a transition as remarkable as the emergence of life itself. Despite the existence of language and the new means of information recording and processing it enabled, at the current stage of evolution, the information in DNA is indispensable; without information in DNA all cultural information and life itself would disappear soon. But need life be like this? Or could future civilisations, in thousands or millions of years, possibly colonising planets of distant galaxies, be based on entirely different principles? Will there be another transition in which DNA becomes less central? The book is aimed at everybody interested in science and comfortable with elementary mathematics: high-school students, teachers, engineers, medical doctors, and business managers, among others. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of a wide range of disciplines, from physics, computing, and biology to social sciences and philosophy"--
650			_aBiology
650			_aLife sciences
650			_aDNA
650			_aRNA
942			_2ddc _cBK
999			_c189980 _d189980