Condensed and Living Matter Seminars
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "The thermodynamics and electrokinetics of 'blue' energy"
René van Roij (Institute for Theoretical Physics, Utrecht University)
With every litre of fresh river water that flows into the salty sea, an amount of 2kJ of (free) energy is dissipated, i.e. the equivalent of a waterfall of 200m. With present-day membranes and porous nanomaterials…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Actin dynamics regulate spatial mixing of mitochondria in dividing cells"
Erika Holzbaur (Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine)
Symmetric cell division requires the even partitioning of genetic information and cytoplasmic contents between daughter cells. While the mechanisms coordinating the replication and segregation of the genome have been…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Robotics as an Interface to the Natural World"
M. Ani Hsieh (Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of Pennsylvania)
Robotics and autonomous systems enable us to interact more richly and extensively with the world we live in. Robots provide in-situ monitoring of the environments they are immersed in and can adapt their strategies…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Curious Electrostatics in Concentrated Electrolytes"
Susan Perkin (Physical & Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, Oxford University)
An electrolyte is a substance containing mobile ions. Electrolytes are within us and surround us at every scale: they mediate molecular processes in all living systems, they fill the phone batteries in our pockets,…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Tiny Robots"
Mark Miskin (University of Pennsylvania)
After 50 years of Moore’s law, it’s now possible to pack nearly 1 million transistors in the space of a paramecium, enabling tiny systems for sensing, communication, and computation. This radical miniaturization of…
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "TBA"
Aleksandra Vojvodic (University of Pennsylvania)
Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: "Non-Hermitian Symmetry and Topology in Photonics "
Liang Feng (University of Pennsylvania)
Symmetry and topology are fundamental notions existing in all kinds of natural systems, from spiral galaxies and hurricanes to amino acids in molecules and non-trivial topologically protected electronic states in…