Understanding how bacteria grow and control their division is a fundamental question, yet our understanding of these processes is incomplete. I will describe several methodologies we developed to extract biological insights into these processes from single-cell measurements of cell size and timing of key cell cycle events, which we applied to…

The tools of soft matter, in which mesoscopically large entities are coarse grained into relatively simple degrees of freedom, are being increasingly used to predict the behavior of active and even living systems. Prominent examples include models for bird flocks, or models for the mechanics and rheology of dense cellular matter. Constructing…

Vertebrate immune systems face an astonishing challenge. They are equipped to recognize small molecular signatures, and using this information must be able to discriminate between innocuous stimuli such as self-antigens or benign commensal organisms, and pathogenic stimuli from infections and altered self (cancer). To each they must respond…

Leenoy Meshulam, University of Washington and Sam Reiter, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
Octopus camouflage

Antonio Carlos Costa, École Normale Supérieure, and Claire Wyart, Paris Brain Institute
Zebrafish…