All of us originate from a single cell, known as the zygote. Nevertheless, we are made of thousands of cells with different functionalities and morphologies: a skin cell is not the same as a neuron, yet they share the same genetic information. It is during embryo development that, through multiple cell divisions, the zygote gives rise to each of the cell types present in the different organs of each organism. One main challenge of developmental biology is to understand how, when, and where lineage commitment to each cell type takes place.
{"title":"Cell differentiation unravelled by single-cell RNA sequencing","authors":"A. Alemany","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020505","url":null,"abstract":"All of us originate from a single cell, known as the zygote. Nevertheless, we are made of thousands of cells with different functionalities and morphologies: a skin cell is not the same as a neuron, yet they share the same genetic information. It is during embryo development that, through multiple cell divisions, the zygote gives rise to each of the cell types present in the different organs of each organism. One main challenge of developmental biology is to understand how, when, and where lineage commitment to each cell type takes place.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86601141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Equilibrium temperature is classically defined based on thermodynamics using entropy and internal energy: how then can we describe temperature in non-equilibrium living systems such as cells, whose states are not well described by existing thermodynamics?
{"title":"What is the temperature of a cell?","authors":"Kumiko Hayashi, Shin Hasegawa, Shinsuke Niwa","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020510","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020510","url":null,"abstract":"Equilibrium temperature is classically defined based on thermodynamics using entropy and internal energy: how then can we describe temperature in non-equilibrium living systems such as cells, whose states are not well described by existing thermodynamics?","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81519758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Single molecule and single particle microscopy opened the door to observing dynamical processes in noisy living systems. Recent studies demonstrate how the stochastic motion of tracer particles can also provide us with information about the structure and flow properties of active and complex biological systems.
{"title":"From single particle motion to structure of biological systems","authors":"Y. Roichman","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020509","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020509","url":null,"abstract":"Single molecule and single particle microscopy opened the door to observing dynamical processes in noisy living systems. Recent studies demonstrate how the stochastic motion of tracer particles can also provide us with information about the structure and flow properties of active and complex biological systems.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81984500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Arenas, J. Gómez-Gardeñes, C. Granell, D. Soriano-Paños
A very simple epidemic model proposed a century ago is the linchpin of the current mathematical models of the epidemic spreading of the COVID-19. Nowadays, the abstracted compartmentalisation of the population in susceptible, infected and recovered individuals, combined with precise information about the networks of mobility flows within geographical territories, is the best weapon of the physics community to forecast the possible evolution of contagions in the current pandemic scenario.
{"title":"Epidemic spreading: Tailored models for COVID-19","authors":"A. Arenas, J. Gómez-Gardeñes, C. Granell, D. Soriano-Paños","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020507","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020507","url":null,"abstract":"A very simple epidemic model proposed a century ago is the linchpin of the current mathematical models of the epidemic spreading of the COVID-19. Nowadays, the abstracted compartmentalisation of the population in susceptible, infected and recovered individuals, combined with precise information about the networks of mobility flows within geographical territories, is the best weapon of the physics community to forecast the possible evolution of contagions in the current pandemic scenario.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83456483","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Statistical physics was originally developed to understand the behaviour of materials like gases, liquids or crystalline solids and the phase transitions between them. But in recent decades, concepts from statistical physics have been applied much more widely, in particular to biological systems.
{"title":"The nonlinearity of life","authors":"Edgar Herrera-Delgado, Peter Sollich","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020506","url":null,"abstract":"Statistical physics was originally developed to understand the behaviour of materials like gases, liquids or crystalline solids and the phase transitions between them. But in recent decades, concepts from statistical physics have been applied much more widely, in particular to biological systems.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85087122","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mechanics plays a key role in life, from simple tasks like providing protective shielding to highly complex ones such as cell division. To understand mechanical properties on the organism level, we need to zoom in to its constituent cells, then zoom back out to see how they collectively build tissues.
{"title":"Mechanics in biology","authors":"T. Idema","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020504","url":null,"abstract":"Mechanics plays a key role in life, from simple tasks like providing protective shielding to highly complex ones such as cell division. To understand mechanical properties on the organism level, we need to zoom in to its constituent cells, then zoom back out to see how they collectively build tissues.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89538558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Protein nanomechanics is a rapidly evolving field at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology focused on the characterisation of the conformational dynamics of proteins under force, of common occurrence in vivo.
{"title":"Protein nanomechanics: The power of stretching","authors":"Marc Mora, S. Garcia-Manyes","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020503","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020503","url":null,"abstract":"Protein nanomechanics is a rapidly evolving field at the intersection of physics, chemistry and biology focused on the characterisation of the conformational dynamics of proteins under force, of common occurrence in vivo.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91350385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“Using Twitter can be more than just a social media activity. It can be a real career incubator in which researchers can develop their professional circles, launch new research projects and get helped by the community at various stages of the projects”. In a PLOS Computational Biology paper experienced scientific Twitter users share ‘Ten simple rules for getting started on Twitter as a scientists’ [1].
{"title":"Getting started on twitter as a scientist","authors":"","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020511","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020511","url":null,"abstract":"“Using Twitter can be more than just a social media activity. It can be a real career incubator in which researchers can develop their professional circles, launch new research projects and get helped by the community at various stages of the projects”. In a PLOS Computational Biology paper experienced scientific Twitter users share ‘Ten simple rules for getting started on Twitter as a scientists’ [1].","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73615325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Transformative technological advances have propelled cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to take center stage in elucidating the intricacies of the nanoscale molecular machinery of viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic cells. Continued developments hold exciting promise for structural biophysicists to move closer to their dream of visualising atomic resolution snapshots of individual molecules at work in their native cellular environment.
{"title":"Seeing with electrons","authors":"A. Jakobi","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020502","url":null,"abstract":"Transformative technological advances have propelled cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to take center stage in elucidating the intricacies of the nanoscale molecular machinery of viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic cells. Continued developments hold exciting promise for structural biophysicists to move closer to their dream of visualising atomic resolution snapshots of individual molecules at work in their native cellular environment.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91100882","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) can be viewed as a medium akin to a dielectric which can be polarised by external fields. If these are sufficiently strong, the response of the vacuum becomes nonlinear and involves phenomena such as lightby- light scattering (‘nonlinear optics’) and, in extremis, ‘dielectric breakdown’, i.e. real pair production, if a critical field strength is exceeded. The LUXE experiment aims to realise near-critical fields through collisions of photons stemming from an ultra-intense optical laser with high energy electrons or photons provided by the European XFEL linear accelerator. This set-up provides a golden opportunity to enter the uncharted territory of strong-field quantum electrodynamics in the non-perturbative regime.
{"title":"Luxe: combining high energy and intensity to spark the vacuum","authors":"B. Heinemann, T. Heinzl, A. Ringwald","doi":"10.1051/epn/2020401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1051/epn/2020401","url":null,"abstract":"The vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) can be viewed as a medium akin to a dielectric which can be polarised by external fields. If these are sufficiently strong, the response of the vacuum becomes nonlinear and involves phenomena such as lightby- light scattering (‘nonlinear optics’) and, in extremis, ‘dielectric breakdown’, i.e. real pair production, if a critical field strength is exceeded. The LUXE experiment aims to realise near-critical fields through collisions of photons stemming from an ultra-intense optical laser with high energy electrons or photons provided by the European XFEL linear accelerator. This set-up provides a golden opportunity to enter the uncharted territory of strong-field quantum electrodynamics in the non-perturbative regime.","PeriodicalId":52467,"journal":{"name":"Europhysics News","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86865138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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