Events Archive

Sep
16
2013
Observation of Astrophysical Neutrinos by IceCube
Sep
11
2013
Models and measurements of myriad molecular motors in muscle -- new directions in force generation.
Sep
09
2013
Micromechanical studies of protein-DNA interactions and chromosome structure
Sep
05
2013
Holographic Quantum Matter
Sep
04
2013
Quantum Matter and the Entanglement Frontier
Entanglement has recently emerged as an important conceptual tool in quantum many-body physics.  I will explain why we care about entanglement in quantum matter and why we are interested in the physics of highly ntangled quantum states.  I will also show how entanglement has led us to new phases of matter, new ways to characterize phases and phase transitions, novel numerical techniques, and useful conceptual advances. I will conclude with a discussion of the prospects for measuring...
Sep
03
2013
Exerting Mechanical Force on Proteins
Using force spectroscopy mode of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) one can measure physiologically relevant pN forces between an AFM tip and a biomolecule with a mean displacement resolution of about 0.1 nm. The last 15 years have witnessed an explosion of interest in single molecule force spectroscopy fueled by: 1) new possibilities to advance in protein folding, 2) possibilities to elucidate molecular mechanisms of various cellular processes, and diseases, and 3) efforts to understand...
Aug
28
2013
Toward highly dynamic locomotion : actuation, structure and control of the MIT cheetah robot
Aug
28
2013
Mathematical Biology and Ecology Seminar: Cascades and Social Influence on Networks
I discuss "simple" dynamical systems on networks and examine how network structure affects dynamics of processes running on top of networks.  I consider results based on "locally tree-like" and/or mean-field and pair approximations and examine when they seem to work well, what can cause them to fail, and when they seem to produce accurate results even though their hypotheses are violated fantastically.  I'll also present a new model for multi-stage complex contagions--in which fanatics produce greater influence than mere followers--and examine dynamics on networks with hetergeneous...
Aug
21
2013
Exploring the Phase Space of Transitional Pipe Flow
Well-controlled experiments in pipe flow began at least as early as those by Reynolds himself (1883).  Forming a model for transition to turbulence, however, has taken a long time to develop.  The first nonlinear solutions to the equations governing fluid flow in a pipe were discovered only 10 years ago (Faisst and Eckhardt 2003), but since this time our understanding of the underlying nonlinear dynamics has developed thick and fast.  I begin by reviewing some of the progress that followed the discovery of travelling wave solutions.  For the future, it will be...
Aug
19
2013
Complexity and Organization in Earth Systems

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