The aim of this chapter is to highlight the possibility of applying the mathematicalformalism and methodology of quantum theory to model behaviourof complex biosystems, from genomes and proteins to animals, humans, ecologicaland social systems. Such models are known as quantum-like and theyshould be distinguished from genuine quantum physical modeling of biologicalphenomena. One of the distinguishing features of quantum-like models istheir applicability to macroscopic biosystems, or to be more precise, to informationprocessing in them. Quantum-like modeling has the base in quantuminformation theory and it can be considered as one of the fruits of the quantuminformation revolution. Since any isolated biosystem is dead, modelingof biological as well as mental processes should be based on theory of opensystems in its most general form – theory of open quantum systems. In thischapter we advertise its applications to biology and cognition, especiallytheory of quantum instruments and quantum master equation. We mentionthe possible interpretations of the basic entities of quantum-like models withspecial interest to QBism as maybe the most useful interpretation.

Despite recent advances, key events in snake evolution have remained difficult to resolve, including their position in the squamate tree and several ingroup relationships. Comparative genomics has unrealised potential for phylogenetic inference and may advance understanding of snake evolution. This chapter reviews the history of snake molecular phylogenetics up to the current genomics revolution. This work has often corroborated phylogenetic inferences from morphology but also discovered relationships not previously considered or supported. We discuss properties of snake nuclear genomes, considering their potential for phylogenetic inference. Using data from 30 available squamate genomes, we provide preliminary examples applying both cumulative and non-cumulative frequency coding to genome size, GC content, and 14 repetitive element characteristics. Cumulative frequency coding outperforms non-cumulative coding and recovers most, but not all, well-known snake clades. We describe how the relationships of some snake lineages remains poorly supported despite their inclusion in large genomic-scale datasets, and suggest possible avenues of future research using comparative genomics.

Genomic studies have elucidated some molecular underpinnings for adaptations during the early history of snakes, but studies of dietary adaptations remain sparse. Snakes differ from most other squamates by tending towards diets of vertebrate prey (carnivory), whereas arthropods are common in diets of most other squamates (insectivory). To test whether a shift from insectivory to carnivory occurred early in snake history, I examined chitinase genes (CHIAs) in 19 squamates. Previous studies on mammals found that contraction in the number of CHIAs, which enzymatically digest arthropod chitinous exoskeletons, correlates with transitions from insectivory to carnivory or herbivory. I found evidence that CHIAs have a long history in Squamata, with at least seven paralogs inferred in their last common ancestor. Retention of these CHIAs seems to be commonplace for arthropod-eating squamates, but snakes likely lost six CHIAs between diverging from other toxicoferans and the origin of afrophidian snakes. This genomic signal corresponds with an inferred major shift towards carnivory during the origin and evolution of early snakes, which may have contributed to their successful radiation.

|Xam told stories in which quaggas were cast as sentient beings with families, some of which were quite dysfunctional. |Xam narratives explain their stripes and brown coloration, their fear of humans, and their behavior when hunted. While they existed, they gathered little attention from Europeans apart from featuring in accounts of explorers and hunters; they appeared in two poems by Thomas Pringle and were the focus of Lord Morton’s account of telegony. Few extinct animals, however, have had such an eventful afterlife as quaggas: in the last eighty years they have featured in stories, poems, paintings, and a film, and they were the first extinct organism to have their DNA sequenced. Similarities between quagga genomes and those of plains zebras show that these animals are conspecific and so all plains zebras now have the binomial name of Equus quagga; nonetheless, there are genetic differences between quaggas and other plains zebras. Quaggas live on symbolically in the coat of arms of the Western Cape province, and as an example of anthropogenic extinction.