biology

A while ago I discussed lipid membranes and how they could exhibit critical behaviour. There were some lovely pictures on criticality on giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) which are sort of model cell walls. That work was done by Sarah Keller and friends in Seattle. This morning on the arXiv I saw this new paper, also by Sarah: Dynamic critical exponent in a 2D lipid membrane with conserved order parameter They look at the critical dynamics of the GUV’s surface....

It’s been ages since my last post. This is because I’ve been busy doing lots of interesting physics, met a bunch of interesting physicists, maybe I’ll write something about it. For now, something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, and for once it’s something that’s timely. The journal Soft Matter has an issue out with a membrane biophysics theme. You can read the editorial for yourself if you have access, otherwise make do with my ropey understanding of it....