Tag: Biological Networks

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.