Biosemiotics investigates the role that sign use plays in life processes. All processes in organisms obey physical laws, the difference from inanimate processes lying in their organisation and being subject to control by coded information.

It uses concepts from semiotics and the study of dynamic sign action in humans as well as elsewhere in nature to answer questions about the biological emergence of meaning, intentionality and a psychic world; questions that are hard to answer within a purely mechanist and physicalist framework.

To define biosemiotics as biology interpreted as sign systems study is to emphasize not only the close relation between biology as we know it and the study of signs, but primarily the profound change of perspective implied when life is considered not just from the perspectives of molecules and chemistry, but as signs conveyed and interpreted by other living signs in a variety of ways, including by means of molecules.

In this sense, biosemiotics takes for granted and respects the complexity of living processes as revealed by the existing fields of biology – from molecular biology to brain science and behavioural studies – however, biosemiotics attempts to bring together separate findings of the various disciplines of biology, including evolutionary biology, into a new and more unified perspective on the central phenomena of the living world, including the generation of function and signification in living systems, from the ribosome to the ecosystem and from the beginnings of life to its ultimate meanings.

Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen present in common organic molecules. Some sources state that thirteen dietary minerals are required to support human biochemical processes by serving structural and functional roles.

Potassium is a systemic electrolyte and is essential in coregulating ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate, a transporter of chemical energy within cells for metabolism with sodium). Dietary sources include legumes, potato skin, tomatoes, and bananas.

Chloride is needed for production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach and in cellular pump functions. Table salt is the main dietary source of chloride.

Sodium is a systemic electrolyte and is essential in coregulating ATP with potassium. Dietary sources include table salt, sea vegetables, milk, and spinach.

Calcium is needed for muscle, heart and digestive system health, to build bones, and support synthesis and function of blood cells. Dietary sources of calcium include dairy products, canned fish with bones (salmon, sardines), green leafy vegetables, nuts and seeds.

Phosphorus is a component of bones, cellular energy processing and many other functions. In biological contexts it is usually observed as phosphate.

Magnesium is required for processing ATP and for bones. Dietary sources include nuts, soy beans, and cocoa.

Zinc is pervasive and required for several enzymes such as carboxypeptidase, liver alcohol dehydrogenase, and carbonic anhydrase.

Iron is required for many proteins and enzymes, notably hemoglobin. Dietary sources include red meat, leafy green vegetables, fish (tuna, salmon), eggs, dried fruits, beans, whole grains, and enriched grains.

Manganese is a significant cofactor in many enzyme functions.

Copper is a required component of many redox enzymes, including cytochrome.

Iodine is required for the biosynthesis of thyroxine.

Selenium is a cofactor essential in activity of antioxidant enzymes like glutathione peroxidase.

Molybdenum subsists in the oxidases. Xanthine oxidase, aldehyde oxidase, and sulfite oxidase all contain significant quantities of molybdenum.

Healing of the body is accomplished through restoration of damaged cells to normal function. It is the process by which cells regenerate and repair. Healing incorporates both the removal and replacement of damaged areas in the body.

Living organs will heal using a combination of regeneration and repair. Regeneration occurs when damaged cells are replaced by the same cell structure that was originally present. Repair is the process by which injured areas are replaced with scar tissue, a natural part of the body’s reaction to wounding or injury that is deeply correlated with healing.

In order for an injury to be healed by regeneration, the cell type that was destroyed will replicate. This process occurs by use of a cellular framework along which to grow known as collagen. Collagen is the main component of all connective tissue that guides cell growth. It continues to exist even when the cells around it are damaged.

The existing cells replicate, using the collagen framework as a guide, eventually bringing the damaged area of the body back to normal. After regeneration is complete, the damage to the original cell area is undetectable. Ultimately, a scar made of collagen containing a small number of assistive healing cells is left.

Bioelectromagnetism refers to the electrical, magnetic or electromagnetic fields produced by living cells, tissues or organisms. Examples include the cell membrane potential and the electric currents that flow in nerves and muscles as a result of action potentials.

It is an aspect of all living things, including all plants and animals. Some animals have acute bioelectric sensors and others, such as migratory birds, are believed to navigate in part by orienteering with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field. Also, sharks are more sensitive to local interaction in electromagnetic fields than most humans. Other animals, such as the electric eel, are able to generate large electric fields outside their bodies.

Bioelectromagnetism is associated with biorhythms and chronobiology. Biofeedback is used in physiology and psychology to monitor rhythmic cycles of physical, mental, and emotional characteristics and as a technique for teaching the control of bioelectric functions.

There are multiple categories of Bioelectromagnetism such as brainwaves, myoelectricity, and other related subdivisions of the same general bioelectromagnetic phenomena. One such phenomenon is a brainwave, where bioelectromagnetic fluctuations of voltage between parts of the cerebral cortex are detectable. This is primarily studied in the brain by way of electroencephalograms.

Semantic memory refers to the memory of meanings, understandings, and other concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific experience. It refers to general facts and meanings we share with others. The conscious recollection of factual information and general knowledge about the world is independent of context and personal relevance.

It includes generalized knowledge that does not involve memory of a specific event. For instance, you can answer a question like “Are wrenches pets or tools?” without remembering any specific event in which you learned that wrenches are tools. What is stored in semantic memory is the “gist” of experience, an abstract structure that applies to a wide variety of experiential objects and which may be said to delineate categorical and functional relationships between them.

Rather than any one brain region playing a dedicated and privileged role in the representation or retrieval of all semantic knowledge, semantic memory is a collection of functionally and anatomically distinct systems where each attribute-specific system is tied to a sensor modality (i.e. vision) and even more specifically to a property within that modality (i.e. color).

Neuroimaging studies suggest a distinction between semantic processing and sensor processing, and reveal a large distributed network of semantic representations that are organized minimally by attribute and additionally by category. These networks include extensive regions of form, color and motion knowledge that collectively interpret stimuli.

The cortical homunculus is a pictorial representation of the anatomical divisions of the primary motor cortex and the primary somatosensory cortex. It presents the portion of the human brain directly responsible for the movement and exchange of sense and motor information of the rest of the body.

The resulting image is a disfigured human with disproportionately huge hands, lips, and face in comparison to the rest of the body. Because of the fine motor skills and sense nerves found in these particular parts of the body they are represented as being larger on the homunculus. A part of the body with fewer sensory or motor connections to the brain is represented to appear smaller.

Dr. Wilder Penfield used a similar image to depict the body according to the areas of the motor cortex controlling it in voluntary movement. Sometimes thought to be the brain’s map of the body, the motor homunculus is really a map of the proportionate association of the cortex with body members. It also reflects kinesthetic proprioception, the body as felt in motion.

For example the thumb, which is used in thousands of complex activities, appears much larger than the thigh with its relatively simple movement. This develops over time and differs from one person to the next. The hand in the brain of an infant is different from the hand in the brain of a concert pianist. The difference is due to differences in the functional organization of associated areas of the brain, which is in turn influenced by the muscular anatomy of the effector muscles of the hand.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis regarding the field of robotics and computer graphic animation. The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The valley in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot’s lifelikeness.

A number of theories have been proposed to explain the cognitive mechanism underlying the phenomenon. As appearance and motion become less distinguishable from a human being, an evolved cognitive mechanism for the avoidance of selecting mates with low fertility, poor hormonal health, or ineffective immune systems based on visible features of the face and body is activated.

In addition, the viewing of a not quite real human animation or robot elicits an innate fear of death, pathogen avoidance, and the irrational belief that aging and death as a central premise of life apply to all others but oneself. The jerkiness of an android’s movements could be unsettling because it elicits a fear of losing bodily control.

The uncanny valley may be symptomatic of entities that elicit a model of a human other but do not measure up to it. If an entity looks sufficiently nonhuman, its human characteristics will be noticeable, generating empathy. However, if the entity looks almost human, it will elicit our model of a human other and its detailed normative expectations.

The concept of the uncanny valley is taken seriously by the film industry due to negative audience reactions to CGI animations. The 2004 CGI animated film The Polar Express was criticized by reviewers who felt that the appearance and movements of the characters were creepy or eerie.

Neuroticism is a fundamental personality trait in the study of psychology. It can be defined as an enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states. Individuals who score high on neuroticism are more likely than the average to experience such feelings as anxiety, anger, guilt, and clinical depression. They respond more poorly to environmental stress, and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening, and minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult.

Neuroticism appears to be related to physiological differences in the brain. Hans Eysenck theorized that neuroticism is a function of activity in the limbic system, and research suggests that people who score highly on measures of neuroticism have a more reactive sympathetic nervous system, and are more sensitive to environmental stimulation. Behavioral genetics researchers have found that a substantial portion of the variability on measures of neuroticism can be attributed to genetic factors.

A study with positron emission tomography has found that healthy subjects that score high on neuroticism tests tend to have high altanserin binding in the frontolimbic region of the brain, an indication that these subjects tend to have more of the 5-HT2A receptor in that location. Another study has found that healthy subjects with a high neuroticism score tend to have higher DASB binding in the thalamus, with DASB being a ligand that binds to the serotonin transporter protein.

Neuroticism, along with other personality traits, has been mapped across states in the USA. People in eastern states such as New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Mississippi tend to score high on neuroticism, whereas people in many western states, such as Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Oregon, and Arizona score lower on average. People in states that are higher in neuroticism also tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy.