Tag: Biological Networks

Interview with Birgit Sollie

Birgit Sollie is a PhD student at the VU Amsterdam, where she does research in stochastic processes and mathematical biology. In this interview she talks about her research and her motivation for doing mathematics.

Synchronization in the body-clock

The body-clock, which is a cluster of neurons in the brain, has the same structure in all mammals, which is remarkable. It consists of two groups: two-communities of neurons that are strongly linked within each community and less strongly linked between the communities.

The Mysterious R explained in simple terms

During the Corona pandemic the reproduction number $R$ appeared in much of the media. While it is not at all obvious what this quantity measures exactly, it is obvious that making it smaller than 1 really is crucial in controlling the spread of the virus. So what is this $R$ really?

The seed bank, a hidden storage of genetic diversity

In 2012 a team of Russian scientists managed to germinate a 30.000 year old seed of an indigenous Siberian flower, called the Silene stenophylla. The seed blossomed into a plant, whose flowers produced fertile seeds.

Filming a fruit fly’s neurons firing

You probably didn’t hear about it, but a little while ago, an amazing advance happened in neuroscience: In 2015, for the first time, scientists were able to make a real-time video of the neural activity of a living creature (a fruit fly larva).

Networks to understand our DNA

One beautiful, extremely important hidden network is the network of gene interactions: our DNA contains tens of thousands of genes. Some of these are really important. If you don’t have even one of them, you can’t live.