EckfordLab

After a long time in the making, my paper on nonequilibrium thermodynamics of Darwinian evolution has been published in Philosophical Transactions B. Updated version: arxiv.org/abs/2112.02809

Physics of Life: Exploring Information as a Distinctive Feature of Living Systems Living systems are defined by their active acquisition and use of information. This Roadmap surveys current research on life's information processes and their importance for the search for life beyond...

Here is our new paper that we're really excited about. What makes a cell different from a rock? The answer we argue is the USE of information. But information carries meaning and that changes everything if we want to understand the "physics of life".

journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...

It is difficult to develop a consistent scientific (or even philosophical) definition of "life". We argue that a distinctive feature of life is its use and processing of information, with implications for physics, biology, and information theory.

Physics of Life: Exploring Information as a Distinctive Feature of Living Systems Living systems are defined by their active acquisition and use of information. This Roadmap surveys current research on life's information processes and their importance for the search for life beyond...

Please check out our (open access!) paper in PRX Life: "Physics of Life: Exploring Information as a Distinctive Feature of Living Systems"

journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...

You laugh but if you're in a pickle, 22/7 varies from pi by less than one part in a thousand.

Given that it was sunk,

Hello Montreal!

I have strong opinions about "The Bandwagon". I certainly don't think Shannon was wrong but I think his argument is widely misunderstood, in ways that have held back important applications of information theory. In some ways, I wish he hadn't written it.

Is there a word for the feeling of frustration when, in the instant between when you decide to click on a link and when you actually click on it, something loads in the background which shifts the page and you end up clicking on something else entirely?

I don't know who needs to hear this, but "label created" is not "shipped".

Give me the news

It's too bad because I was looking forward to going to ISIT this year, a conference I haven't been to in a few years.

The tariffs applied to Canadian goods are, from the words of the president himself, an explicit threat to Canadian sovereignty.

Accordingly, while they are in effect, I will not use Canadian grant funds to travel to the United States, and I think my Canadian colleagues should do likewise.

(N5 is the lowest level they test. But it's a start.)

見てください

I am going to have to go through the response to reviewers carefully to make sure no swear words get through.

Reviewer [after we added pages of material in response to their comments in the last round]: The paper is now too long

Same reviewer in this round: Please add a tutorial on linear algebra to the model section.

I'm so sorry to hear, my condolences.

If you notify me that the order has shipped, but when I check the tracking link it says "label created", then you are a bad person.

Hot off the press: I am pleased to announce that the 2nd edition of our foundational textbook, Molecular Communication, has now been published by Cambridge University Press!

www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...

I really need to enable offline syncing of my overleaf projects

Just like I tell myself during every outage

Watch for the release of the second edition of our book, next month: www.cambridge.org/ca/universit...

Guest blog post on the @cambridgeup.bsky.social Fifteen Eighty Four blog: "Small talk: Exchanging messages at the nanoscale with molecular communication"

cambridgeblog.org/2024/11/smal...

🚨🚨🚨Molecular Communication, 2nd edition🚨🚨🚨

We've been working on this for a while ... finally coming out this June!!!

www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...

Hello, world!