Bioinspired genotype–phenotype linkages
Florian Hollfelder is based in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is interested in mechanism in chemistry and biology. Here he describes using principles of natural selection to make functional proteins.
More details | Watch nowBioinspired membrane-based systems
Directrice de Recherche Patricia Bassereau, Institut Curie Centre de Recherche Laboratorie Physico-Chimie, France, speaks on bioinspired membrane-based systems for a physical approach of cell organization and dynamics: usefulness and limitations.
More details | Watch nowCrystals: animal, vegetable or mineral?
Stephen Hyde is Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and the Research School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University in Canberra. Taking the popular children's game as a starting point, he asks whether crystalli....
More details | Watch nowLiving Crystals
Yuru Deng is an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore with a background in dentistry. Here she discusses the enigmatic functions of biological cubic membranes.
More details | Watch nowBioinspiration: something for everyone
George Whitesides is the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University. Best-known for his work in NMR spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly and nanotechnology, here he introduces sof....
More details | Watch nowCuckoos and their victims
The sight of a little warbler feeding an enormous cuckoo chick has astonished observers since ancient times. It was once thought that cuckoos were unable to raise their own young because of defective anatomy and behaviour, and so other birds were onl....
More details | Watch nowBacterial cell walls, antibiotics and the origins of life
The cell wall is a crucial structure found in almost all bacteria. It is the target for our best antibiotics and fragments of the wall trigger powerful innate immune responses against infection. Surprisingly, many bacteria can switch almost effortl....
More details | Watch nowThe Long Road to the Higgs Boson – and Beyond
The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s LHC accelerator in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations was the culmination of a decades-long search that had started in 1964 with the proposal of this unique particle, a signature of the origin of the....
More details | Watch nowContinental loss: the quest to determine Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level change
For over 50 years scientists have been working to understand Antarctica’s contribution to sea level. For much of this time there has even been disagreement about if this massive ice sheet is growing or shrinking. In 2012, advances in data analysis....
More details | Watch nowIs chemistry really so difficult?
Chemistry has progressed in a way few outsiders appreciate. It underpins many other sciences; from genomics and molecular biology, food and sports science, through to cosmology and planetary science. Why hasn't the public impression of chemistry evol....
More details | Watch nowStatistical and causal approaches to machine learning
This talk introduces the basic ideas of machine learning, and illustrates them with application examples. It argues that while machine learning and "big data" analysis currently mainly focuses on statistics; the causal point of view can provide addit....
More details | Watch nowHarnessing the power of mobile phones and big data for global health
Infectious diseases rank among the gravest threats to human health alongside global warming and terrorism. New strains continue to evolve every year and can spread rapidly. The consequences can be devastating. The 1918 Spanish flu killed an estimated....
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