This document is the Special Issue of the First International Conference on the Evolution and Development of the Universe (EDU 2008). Please refer to the preface and introduction for more details on the contributions. Keywords: acceleration, artificial cosmogenesis, artificial life, Big Bang, Big History, biological evolution, biological universe, biology, causality, classical vacuum energy, complex systems, complexity, computational universe, conscious evolution, cosmological artificial selection, cosmological natural selection, cosmology, critique, cultural evolution, dark energy, dark matter, development of the universe, development, emergence, evolution of the universe evolution, exobiology, extinction, fine-tuning, fractal space-time, fractal, information, initial conditions, intentional evolution, linear expansion of the universe, log-periodic laws, macroevolution, materialism, meduso-anthropic principle, multiple worlds, natural sciences, Nature, ontology, order, origin of the universe, particle hierarchy, philosophy, physical constants, quantum darwinism, reduction, role of intelligent life, scale relativity, scientific evolution, self-organization, speciation, specification hierarchy, thermodynamics, time, universe, vagueness.
The cosmological constant problem is the principal obstacle in the attempt to interpret dark energy as the quantum vacuum energy. We suggest that the obstacle can be removed, i.e. that the cosmological constant problem can be resolved by assuming that the virtual particles and antiparticles in the quantum vacuum have the gravitational charge of the opposite sign. The corresponding estimates of the cosmological constant, dark energy density and the equation of state for dark energy are in the intriguing agreement with the observed values in the present day Universe. However, our approach and the Standard Cosmology lead to very different predictions for the future of the Universe; the exponential growth of the scale factor, predicted by the Standard Cosmology, is suppressed in our model.