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Essays: Connections
In this focus
From cell biologists to quantum physicists, researchers are struggling to work out how systems involving large numbers of interacting entities work as a whole. In this collection of Essays, scientists explain how a systems approach, in parallel with the reductionism that dominated twentieth-century science, promises to yield fresh insight, and in some cases, to challenge the most widely held concepts of their field.
Image: Janusz Kapusta
Editorial
Making connections
A series of essays is launched in Nature.
Nature 445, 340 (25 January 2007) doi:10.1038/445340a
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Essays: Connections
Biology's next revolution
The emerging picture of microbes as gene–swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself.
Nigel Goldenfeld and Carl Woese
Nature 445, 369 (25 January 2007) doi:10.1038/445369a
A twenty-first century science
If handled appropriately, data about Internet-based communication and interactivity could revolutionize our understanding of collective human
behaviour.
Duncan J. Watts
Nature 445, 489 (1 February 2007) doi:10.1038/445489a
A clash of two cultures
Physicists come from a tradition of looking for all-encompassing laws, but is this the best approach to use when probing complex biological systems?
Evelyn Fox Keller
Nature 445, 603 (8 February 2007) doi:10.1038/445603a
Collective minds
By tapping into social cues, individuals in a group may gain access to higher-order computational capacities that mirror the group's responses to
its environment.
Iain Couzin
Nature 445, 715 (15 February 2007) doi:10.1038/445715a
Bringing cartoons to life
To understand cells as dynamic systems, mathematical tools are needed to fill the gap between molecular interactions and physiological consequences.
John J. Tyson
Nature 445, 823 (22 February 2007) doi:10.1038/445823a
Protecting biostructure
Biodiversity researchers have focused on diversity at the cost of ignoring the networks of interactions between organisms that characterize
ecosystems.
Kevin McCann
Nature 446, 29 (1 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446029a
Control without hierarchy
Understanding how particular natural systems operate without central control will reveal whether such systems share general properties.
Deborah M. Gordon
Nature 446, 143 (8 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446143a
The structure of consciousness
Subjective awareness may depend on neural networks in the brain supporting complex wiring schemes and dynamic patterns of activity.
György Buzsáki
Nature 446, 267 (15 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446267a
Frontier at your fingertips
Between the nano- and micrometre scales, the collective behaviour of matter can give rise to startling emergent properties that hint at the nexus
between biology and physics.
Piers Coleman
Nature 446, 379 (22 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446379a
Simplicity in biology
Networks of interactions between thousands of molecules within cells seem to defy comprehension, but shared principles of design may simplify
the picture.
Uri Alon
Nature 446, 497 (29 March 2007) doi:10.1038/446497a
Unity from conflict
Could the evolution of multicellular life have been fuelled by conflict among selective forces acting at different levels of organization?
Paul B. Rainey
Nature 446, 616 (5 April 2007) doi:10.1038/446616a
Capturing human behaviour
Understanding the dynamics of infectious-disease transmission demands a holistic approach, yet today's models largely ignore how epidemics
change individual behaviour.
Neil Ferguson
Nature 446, 733 (12 April 2007) doi:10.1038/446733a
Rules of engagement
Complex engineered and biological systems share protocol-based architectures that make them robust and evolvable, but with hidden fragilities to
rare perturbations.
John Doyle & Marie Csete
Nature 446, 860 (19 April 2007) doi:10.1038/446860a
Disappearing act
The bizarre absence of certain gene classes in eukaryotes is key to understanding their evolution and complex links with prokaryotes.
James A. Lake
Nature 446, 983 (26 April 2007) doi:10.1038/446983a
The best is yet to come
Optimality is a key organizing principle of science, but the patterns of connections within real-world networks do not always respect it.
Mark Buchanan
Nature 447, 39 (3 May 2007) doi:10.1038/447039a
Kinds of minds
Do differences in history, culture and education influence whether scientists focus on pieces and particulars, or make broad connections?.
David Knight
Nature 447, 149 (10 May 2007) doi:10.1038/447149a
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