The papers are gathered under the following headings: Overview Origin/Self-Organization Evolutionary Dynamics Development Learning and Evolution Computation Philosophy/Emergence The Future
The papers are gathered under the following headings: Origin of Life, Self-Organization, and Self-Replication Development and Differentiation Evolutionary and Adaptive Dynamics Robots and Autonomous Agents Communication, Cooperation, and Collective Behavior Methodological and Technological Applications The Broader Context
The book covers all major scientific approaches to creating minimal life, both in the laboratory and in simulation. It emphasizes the bottom-up view of physicists, chemists, and material scientists but also includes the molecular biologists top-down approach and the origin-of-ljfe perspective. Ihe capacity to engineer living technology could have a enormous socio-economic impact and could bring both good and ill. Protocells promises to be the essential reference for research on bottom-up assembly of life and living technology for years to come.
The book is useful for graduate students, researchers in the field, and the general scientific reader who is interested in inherently interdisciplinary research at the intersections of computer science, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and mathematics.