Switches, Switches, Every Where, In Any Drop We Drink

Where Are the Switches on This Thing?

Controlled responses differ from reflexes because they can be turned off and on. This is a critical part of what distinguishes animals from automatons. How does the nervous system gate the flow of information so that a sensory stimulus that elicits a strong response on some occasions, evokes no response on others? A related question concerns how the flow of sensory information is altered when w...

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.

How do we get more crop from every drop?

Agriculture currently consumes 70% of the world's developed fresh water supplies. By improving the productivity of water used for agriculture by 40%, it is possible to reduce the amount of additional freshwater withdrawals needed to feed the world's growing population to 0.

Momentum switches

Certain continuous-time quantum walks can be viewed as scattering processes. These processes can perform quantum computations, but it is challenging to design graphs with desired scattering behavior. In this paper, we study and construct momentum switches, graphs that route particles depending on their momenta. We also give an example where there is no exact momentum switch, although we constru...

Actin switches in phagocytosis.

Exposure of phagocytes to non-spherical particles has provided evidence for multiple actions of the actin system in force generation. For the uptake of long cylindrical particles, a "motile actin clamp" mechanism is proposed. When a phagocyte is engaged with an hour-glass-shaped particle, it exerts contractile activity alternatively at the far end of the particle or at its concave region. Phago...