Bootstrapping (biology)

Bootstrapping (biology)

The idea of bootstrapping is significant in a number of fields in the biological sciences. The process by which a fertilised ovum develops into an embryo, particularly the way in which the nuclear genome is expressed differently in its various cells as these differentiate, is one example of bootstrapping. The evolution of progressively better adapted organs through natural selection in a lineage of organisms is another.

Some biologists, including Graham Cairns-Smith, believe that the origin of life itself may have been a bootstrap process as one or more systems of biological information storage formed the foundation for successor systems that ultimately supplanted them culminating in the emergence of our current DNA-based system.

ee also

*embryology
*ontogeny and phylogeny
*RNA World


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Bootstrapping — This is the history of bootstrapping or booting which began in the 1880s as a leather strap and evolved into a group of metaphors that share a common meaning, a self sustaining process that proceeds without external help. traps for leather… …   Wikipedia

  • List of biology topics — Biology is the study of life and its processes. Biologists study all aspects of living things, including all of the many life forms on earth and the processes in them that enable life. These basic processes include the harnessing of energy, the… …   Wikipedia

  • Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World — (ISBN 978 0201483406) is a 1994 book by Kevin Kelly. (The book was also published as Out of control : the rise of neo biological civilization.) Major themes in Out of Control are cybernetics, emergence, self organization, complex systems and …   Wikipedia

  • Quantitative comparative linguistics — is a branch of comparative linguistics that applies mathematical models to the problem of classifying language relatedness. This includes the use of computational phylogenetics and cladistics to define an optimal tree (or network) to represent a… …   Wikipedia

  • evolution — evolutional, adj. evolutionally, adv. /ev euh looh sheuhn/ or, esp. Brit., /ee veuh /, n. 1. any process of formation or growth; development: the evolution of a language; the evolution of the airplane. 2. a product of such development; something… …   Universalium

  • Maximum parsimony (phylogenetics) — Parsimony is a non parametric statistical method commonly used in computational phylogenetics for estimating phylogenies. Under parsimony, the preferred phylogenetic tree is the tree that requires the least evolutionary change to explain some… …   Wikipedia

  • Darwin's Dangerous Idea — For the PBS documentary, see Evolution (TV series). Darwin s Dangerous Idea   …   Wikipedia

  • Major urinary proteins — Tertiary structure of a mouse major urinary protein. The protein has eight beta sheets (yellow) arranged in a beta barrel open at one end, with alpha helices (red) at both the amino and carboxyl termini. The structure is resolved from Protein… …   Wikipedia

  • List of philosophy topics (A-C) — 110th century philosophy 11th century philosophy 12th century philosophy 13th century philosophy 14th century philosophy 15th century philosophy 16th century philosophy 17th century philosophy 18th century philosophy 19th century philosophy220th… …   Wikipedia

  • Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies — The Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies (CLEA) is an interdisciplinary research centre founded at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1995 with the aim to construct integrating worldviews . This encompassing philosophical scientific… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”