Volume: 4 Issue: 1 (2026) Serial Number: 5

The number of primordial black holes (PBHs) formed from inflationary perturbationsdepends exponentially on the upper tail of the probability distribution of the curvature perturbation ζ, which makes every abundance estimate hostage to the statistical assumptions entering thattail. This article quantifies, within a single analytic framework, how the estimated PBH abundancechanges when the standard perturbative Gaussian calculation is replaced by the stochastic-δNtreatment of ultra-slow-roll (USR) inflation, in which the tail decays exponentially, P(ζ) ∝exp(−Λζ), rather than as a Gaussian. Using the logarithmic mapping between ζ and its Gaussianprecursor, with benchmark decay rate Λ = 3 and collapse threshold ζc = 0.65, I derive a closedform amplitude-remapping factor R_A = [Λζc/(1 − exp(−Λζc))]² ≈ 5.2, which measures howmuch smaller the coarse-grained variance σ² must be for the mass fraction β to stay fixed onceexponential tails are switched on. Applied across the asteroid-mass window (10¹⁷–10²³ g), thecalculation shows that a Gaussian-calibrated amplitude σ² ≈ (6.3–7.9)×10⁻³ overproduces PBHsby a factor of 5×10⁹ to 1.2×10¹² when the exponential tail operates at fixed amplitude, while theamplitude required for f_PBH = 1 falls to σ² ≈ (1.2–1.5)×10⁻³. The local sensitivity of the abundance to the amplitude, d ln β/d ln σ² ≈ 31 at the calibration point, is nonetheless invariant underthe change of statistics, so the notorious fine-tuning of PBH dark matter scenarios survives thetransition intact. The asteroid-mass window itself remains a viable candidate for the totality ofdark matter: its boundaries are set by evaporation and microlensing physics that do not dependon formation statistics, although the accompanying induced gravitational-wave signal weakens byroughly a factor of 27.

Pitanje o tome gdje je i kako nastao prvi živi sistem ostaje najspornija tačka savremeneastrobiologije, a rasprava se već decenijama vodi između dvije škole: hipoteze o submarinskimalkalnim hidrotermalnim izvorima i hipoteze o površinskom „toplom malom jezercu”, odnosnovrelim izvorima na kopnu. Članak ne pokušava da izabere pobjednika. Umjesto toga, uvodi senov analitički okvir — topologija slobodnoenergetskog gradijenta — koji preformuliše cijeluraspravu kao razliku između stajaćeg vektorskog gradijenta (hemiozmotski, protonski i redoksgradijent na membrani, karakterističan za izvore) i cikličnog vremenskog gradijenta (naizmjeničnovlaženje i sušenje, karakteristično za jezerca). Uz okvir se predlaže i mjerljivi Indeksslobodnoenergetske sprege (ISES), koji svako okruženje ocjenjuje duž pet dimenzija: perzistencijagradijenta, vektorska sprega, prostorna kompartmentalizacija, ciklična kondenzacija i fluksugljenika i energije. Komparativnom sintezom termodinamičkih parametara iz recenzovaneliterature (2019–2026) pokazuje se da izvori postižu visoku vrijednost „metaboličkog pokretanja”(ISES-M ≈ 0,82), dok jezerca postižu visoku vrijednost „replikativnog pokretanja” (ISES-R ≈0,79). Ključni nalaz jeste da ova dva okruženja nisu konkurentska nego termodinamičkikomplementarna duž prelaza metabolizam→replikacija: izvor obezbjeđuje kontinuirani vektorskigradijent nužan za pokretanje ugljeničnog i energetskog metabolizma, a jezerce obezbjeđujeciklični dehidratacioni režim nužan za polimerizaciju i inkapsulaciju. Rad zaključuje da porijekloživota nije vezano za jedno mjesto nego za sekvencu gradijentnih režima, i tu sekvencu tumači uokviru morfologije prauzroka.

Where does one organism end and its environment begin? The default answer in muchof biology is spatial: the boundary is the outermost membrane, the skin, the cell wall. This articleargues that the membrane is a poor guide to individuality and that the boundary of an organismis better located where information flow closes on itself. I develop the Informational IndividualityCriterion (IIC), a three-axis operationalization that scores any candidate system along informational closure (the contrast between internal predictive mutual information and boundary-crossing mutual information), integrated information (the irreducibility of the system's cause–effectstructure), and constraint-based autonomy (the organizational closure of the constraints thatmaintain the system). On this account, the organismal boundary is the closed surface that maximizes a composite individuality functional, not the surface drawn by lipids or cuticle. I test thecriterion on three cases that break the membrane intuition in opposite directions: the mammalianholobiont, in which many membranes enclose one informational individual; the multinucleatesyncytium, in which one membrane encloses several partly autonomous informational sub-individuals; and the colonial siphonophore, in which many zooid membranes are subordinate to asingle integrated colonial self. Across all three, the informational boundary systematically divergesfrom the physical membrane, and I quantify that gap with a Membrane–Information Divergencediagnostic. The upshot is that individuality is graded, sometimes nested, and frequently displacedfrom the membrane — an outcome that membrane-based criteria cannot represent but that aninformational criterion renders precise and, in principle, measurable.

For Sun-like stars, a comfortable heuristic holds that an outer giant planet is good forthe habitability of inner terrestrial worlds — it helps deliver water and, in the popular imagination,shields the inner system from bombardment. This article argues that the heuristic does not transfer to red dwarfs and that, for the compact resonant systems typical of low-mass stars, an outergiant is more often a liability than an asset. I develop the Giant-Planet Habitability Leverageframework, which decomposes a giant's net effect on an inner terrestrial planet's long-term habitability into three channels — water and volatile delivery, dynamical stabilization versus excitation, and impact or clearing modulation — and combines them into a single signed index (GHLI)that can be positive (the giant helps) or negative (the giant harms). Applying the framework heuristically to three archetypes — a Sun-like system with a Jupiter, a hypothetical M-dwarf compactchain with an imposed cold giant, and a giant-free compact chain of the TRAPPIST-1 type — Ifind that the leverage changes sign with stellar mass: mildly positive to neutral for the solar case(GHLI ≈ +0.3) but distinctly negative when a cold giant is added to a tightly packed M-dwarfchain (GHLI ≈ −0.5). The mechanism is that compact M-dwarf systems obtain their water endogenously, through pebble drift across the ice line during formation, and derive their stabilityfrom resonant locking, so an outer giant supplies little that the system lacks while threatening thefragile resonant architecture on which its stability depends. The upshot is that the observed scarcity of giant planets around red dwarfs, rather than being an obstacle to habitability, is plausiblyone of its enabling conditions. The framework yields concrete, falsifiable predictions and identifies where current occurrence-rate and dynamical constraints most need tightening.

The detection of a putative biosignature gas is only as strong as the abiotic explanationsit can exclude, and recent history — above all the phosphine controversy at Venus — shows howquickly a claimed sign of life can dissolve into instrument artifact or unremarkable geochemistry.This article addresses the methodological problem directly for the two reduced gases most oftenproposed as biosignatures on ocean worlds and habitable-zone exoplanets: methane and phosphine. I argue that prevailing frameworks err by asking a gas-first question — is methane, orphosphine, a biosignature? — and by combining lines of evidence through weighted averagesthat let a strong showing on one axis mask an unaddressed weakness on another. In their place Idevelop a provenance-first Biotic Provenance framework that scores any candidate detection onthree logically independent abiotic-rejection axes: thermodynamic-disequilibrium context, theabiotic-flux ceiling, and spectral and conceptual robustness. Crucially, the framework combinesthese axes under a weakest-link rule — the Biotic Provenance Index is the minimum of the threeaxis scores, not their average — on the argument that a false positive is governed by the leastexcluded abiotic alternative rather than by the average strength of the case. Applied to threetouchstone cases, the framework localizes precisely where each fails: Venus phosphine is limitedby spectral robustness, with the detection itself contested; K2-18b methane and dimethyl sulfideare limited by the same axis, resting on marginal spectral features; and Enceladus methane islimited instead by the abiotic-flux ceiling, because serpentinization can supply the observed abundance. None of the three currently clears the threshold for biotic provenance, but each fails fora different, identifiable reason — which is exactly the diagnostic the field needs, and which aweighted-average confidence ladder obscures.

The image of a single branching tree of life, inherited from Darwin and formalized bymolecular phylogenetics, sits uneasily with what genomics now shows about prokaryotes: thatgenes move sideways across lineages so pervasively that no single gene tree reliably represents anorganism's whole history. This article argues that the tree-versus-web dispute has been miscast asa choice between two incompatible topologies and that both camps are partly right, because theanswer depends on which genes one asks about. I develop a gene-class-stratified reconciliationframework that models a genome as a vertically inherited informational core — the ribosomaland transcription-translation machinery that remains stubbornly tree-like — embedded in a horizontally acquired operational and stress-response shell that is genuinely network-like. On thisaccount the tree of life is neither a tree nor a web but a tree of cores threaded through a networkof shells, and the balance between the two is not fixed but varies across taxa and environments.From the framework I advance the falsifiable Extremity–Reticulation hypothesis: the adaptivecontribution of the horizontal shell, quantified by a Reticulation Index that partitions a genome'sadaptive genes by functional class and provenance, scales with environmental extremity, so thatextremophiles occupy the maximally reticulate end of a continuum. Heuristic scoring across anextremity gradient shows the informational core holding near a Reticulation Index of 0.05–0.08regardless of environment, while the stress-resistance shell climbs from roughly 0.20 in mesophiles to near 0.60 in polyextremophiles. Extremophiles, in this reading, are not marginal curiosities but the clearest demonstration that adaptive evolution in prokaryotes is driven substantiallyby acquisition rather than only by mutation, and the tree of life must be reconceived accordingly— as a statement about the informational core alone, explicitly qualified for everything else.