microbe talk: january 2016

posted on january 28, 2016   by anand jagatia

nature is full of patterns that follow fundamental mathematical rules – from nautilus shells to spiral galaxies, lightning bolts to blood vessels.

in the first podcast of 2016, anand spoke to prof raymond goldstein from the university of cambridge about the mathematical principles that describe both bacteria and electrons.

raymond is an author on a recent paper in nature physics, which explores the patterns of swimming in bacteria, and how they might be related to the spin of electrons in magnetic materials.

 

visualisation of the swimming bacteria (left) and reconstructed bacterial velocity field (right)

don’t forget, you can subscribe to microbe talk on itunes. you can also find us on soundcloud and stitcher.