INBIOSA Project Workshops: summary
The INBIOSA workshops iBioMath 2011 – Am in San Jose, CA and iBioMath 2011 – Eu in Paris went successfully. The presentations were good and varied, and raised many prompt questions. The discussions afterwards were interesting and stimulating. The audiences were larger than expected and yet focused. It was noted that many young scientists wish to collaborate and contribute to INBIOSA.Some eminent members of the scientific community attended the workshops in San Jose and Paris. Interesting conclusions and a question from the workshops: Characterising living systems: Consider living systems as information producers, and also information transducers. Entropy reducing as a necessary condition for a living system, but not as a sufficient condition. Good metaphor: one would not expect to be able to predict a tsunami simply by understanding the physics of water molecules. Question: At what point does one start to consider living systems as cognitive? Bacteria? Salamander?