Biophys talk

I attended a talk tonight by Dr. Robert Austin prof of physics at Princeton. It was an entertaining talk on biology and physics and how the two fields have entangled over the last century and what biophysics may turn into in the future. His main points were on how his attempt at describing the physics of a single cell was extremely complicated and led him no where, whereas he had more success with looking at many cells at once, a many-body problem ,in physics terms. He also talked about evolution and how he's using microstructure enclosures connected by nanocannals to show that bacteria are social. What he has done is injected a food source in one of the ten enclosures and watched the bacteria congregate in various enclosures. Over time, the bacteria migrate from enclosure to enclosure and eventually exist in each block after about 5 days of having only one enclosure getting food. I don't recall where his physics was, but it was neat to watch. He also gave off the vibe that he has been a trouble-rouser over his entire career...calling various people idiots and insulting many biologists. At least it was entertaining.