Condensed concepts

 The theory of evolution explains the origin of biological diversity and levels of similarity between species. A characteristic of emergence...

The relationship between emergence and causation is contentious, with a long history. Most discussions are qualitative. Presented with a new...

Proteins are a distinct state of matter. Globular proteins are tightly packed with a density comparable to a crystal but without the spatia...

This friday I am giving a colloquium for the UQ Physics department. 2024 Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry: from biological physics to a...

Biology is a field that is all about emergence. It exhibits a hierarchy of structures from DNA to proteins to cells to organs to organisms. ...

Stimulated by discussions about the physics of learning machines with Gerard Milburn, I have been wondering about biomolecular machines suc...

Consider a system composed of many interacting parts. I take the defining characteristic of an emergent property is novelty . That is, the...

 I really liked reading Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi . She is an amazing writer. I recently reread some of it for an extended family bo...

Since we are surrounded by scientific knowledge. We are so used to it that we can take science for granted and not reflect on how amazing sc...

 Members of my family have been reading  Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder, and things that sustain you when the world goes dark , a personal ...

 Total I am giving a talk, "Effect of quantum nuclear motion on hydrogen bonds in complex molecular materials" at  Light-matter In...

This week I am giving two (virtual) talks at a meeting Light-matter Interactions from scratch: Theory and Experiments at the Border with Bio...

 Yesterday the UQ Brain Institute had an excellent webinar Brain Health for Mental Health . Four researchers discussed the scientific basis ...

Part two of the Biology brief in The Economist is  Cells and how to run them: All life is made of cells, and cells depend on membranes A few...

 One of the many great things about The Economist magazine is that they run "Briefing" articles that give brief readable introduc...

Tonight I will be giving my first seminar via zoom. Here are the  slides . It is for the  Pandemic Seminar of the UQ School of Mathema...

Next Monday I am giving a seminar, ``The mathematics and physics of virions", for the virtual Pandemic Seminar of the UQ School of Math...