Epigenetic landscape

The epigenetic landscape is a metaphor by Waddington for the way that biotic life dynamically changes the physical landscape where the life resides. “Epigenetics” is a portmanteau of epigenesis and genetics. R. Buckminster Fuller had been greatly dinfluenced by Waddington’s concept. [ton+epigenetic&btnG=Search">google] [ton%20epigenetic&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wp">books]
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C. H. Waddington

Conrad Hal Waddington (1905-1975) [ton.html">short bio]
[ton">wikipedia]

"A Waddingtonian glossary” published in Nature (2002)
as a companion to an article, “Conrad Hal Waddington: the last Renaissance biologist?” by Jonathan M. W. Slack.

Books

• Principles of Embryology (1956, rev. 1957)

• The Strategy of the Genes: A discussion of some aspects of theroetical biology (1957)

• The Ethical Animal (1960)

• Tools for Thought: How to Understand and Apply the Latest Scientific Techniques of Problem Solving

• Waddington: New Patterns in Genetics & Development

• The Nature Of Life

• Behind Appearances

• Evolution and Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition

• The Challenge of Our Time: A Series of Essays

Contemporary research in epigenetics

Dr. Sui Huang, of University of Calgary and Childrens Hospital, Harvard Medical School,
is a researcher whose primary interest is a general theory of multi-cellularity. He has written about complex gene networks and the epigenetic landscape.
Believes that the epigenetic landscape is the same as what is popularly called an attractor landscape today in the genome-wide gene expression state space.

A list of current scientific articles dealing with epigenetics (or, as he calls it, bioinformatics) by Matthew Simon, who warns that it’s very difficult to find such work since bioinformatics is not presently a recognized discipline.

“An Experimental Exploration of Waddington’s Epigenetic Landscape”

“Epigenetic landscaping: Waddington’s use of cell fate bifurcation diagrams” by Scott F. Gilbert (1991)

Blog post in Jason K. Johnson’s Robot Ecologies Lab (2007).

ton+epigenetic#a427485f06e0d461">Review of Waddington in Usenet, circa 2002

ton%20epigenetic&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=gs">More academic research papers and citations

For further reading

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