Studies over the entire range of the life sciences--from the molecular level (DNA and proteins) to entire organisms and ecosystems--benefit from insights derived from the mathematical sciences, encompassing mathematics, statistics, computer sciences, and theoretical physics, note researchers from these disciplines.
One highly publicized mathematical concept that has found wide use in interpreting biological phenomena is game theory, for which Reinhard Selten, a mathematician at the University of Bonn in Switzerland, and economists John F. Nash of Princeton University and John C. Harsanyi of the University of California, Berkeley, won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics.
"Game theory provides a mathematical way to find the best strategies in any situation where there are different payoffs associated with different choices," explains Princeton University biology professor Simon Levin. "Its applications in evolutionary theory involve dealing with simple and abstract 'games' as ways to gain insight into the evolution of behaviors of living organisms." ...
