Darwinian evolution (DE)—biology’s powerful process of adaptation—is remarkably different from other known dynamical processes. It is antithermodynamic, driving away from equilibrium; it has persisted for 3.5 billion years; and its target, fitness, can seem like “Just So” stories. For insights, we make a computational model. In the Darwinian Evolution Machine (DEM) model, resource-driven duplication and competition operate inside a cycle of search/compete/choose. We find the following: 1) DE requires multiorganism coexistence for its long-term persistence and ability to cross fitness valleys. 2) DE is driven by resource dynamics, like booms and busts, not just by mutational change. And, 3) fitness ratcheting requires a mechanistic separation between variation and selection steps, perhaps explaining biology’s use of separate polymers, DNA and proteins.

When life arose from prebiotic molecules 3.5 billion years ago, what came first? Informational molecules (RNA, DNA), functional ones (proteins), or something else? We argue here for a different logic: rather than seeking a molecule type, we seek a dynamical process. Biology required an ability to evolve before it could choose and optimize materials. We hypothesize that the evolution process was rooted in the peptide folding process. Modeling shows how short random peptides can collapse in water, catalyze elongation of others, powering both increased folding stability and emergent autocatalysis through a disorder-to-order process. REQUIREMENT FOR LIFE'S ORIGIN: PERSISTENT PROPAGATIONWhat was the origin of life? A pre-requisite for answering that question is to define the difference between dead and alive. Defining life has been notoriously challenging (

Recent experiments demonstrate molecular chemotaxis or altered diffusion rates of enzymes in the presence of their own substrates. We show here an important implication, namely, that if a nanoscale catalyst A produces a smallmolecule ligand product L which is the substrate of another catalyst B, the two catalysts will attract each other. We explore this nonequilibrium producer recruitment force (ProRec) in a reaction−diffusion model. The predicted cat−cat association will be the strongest when A is a fast producer of L and B is a tight binder to it. ProRec is a force that could drive a mechanism (the catpath mechanism) by which catalysts could become spatially localized into functional pathways, such as in the biochemical networks in cells, which can achieve complex goals.