hypercycles

Eigen had argued that cooperation might be possible if hypercycles were packaged in cells.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

If we assume that cells with the most successfully replicating—and thus cooperating—hypercycles divide most rapidly, then these cells would thrive relative to those that had hypercycles that are being challenged with cheats.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

In the RNA world, all these jobs were done by RNA, but one can extend the hypercycle idea to cover a rainbow of possibilities—RNA hypercycles, DNA-protein hypercycles, cycles turning within other cycles—but all of them share the same mathematical properties.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

Maynard Smith made another great contribution when he warned that hypercycles, altruistic networks of molecular replicators, might have a major problem.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

The presence of cheats that can exploit the hyper-cycle and divert its resources reminds us that though hypercycles solve the error problem, we now have to solve a deeper problem: How do these complex, interdependent communities evolve?

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

By evoking a higher level of selection, acting between cells, hypercycles can shrug off parasites.

SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011

It can be shown by a nonlinear game model, incorporating mutation of a hypercycle, that the selection properties of hypercycles make them inefficient information integrators as they cannot compete favourably with all kinds of less efficient information carriers or mutationally coupled hypercycles.

A Modest Proposal (By a Somewhat Modest Engineer) 2009