PRX Life

A team led by researchers from the University of Osaka has used acoustic tweezers to analyze the mechanical properties of biopolymer droplets without needing to physically touch the material. Using this method, the team investigated the stiffness of condensates of a model biopolymer. This technique will further the knowledge of biopolymer droplets and their roles in cellular biology, and may lead to the discovery of novel methods of treating diseases caused by the dysfunction of these droplets.

Researchers from The University of Tokyo have found that single cells in collective chemotaxis act like agents in distributed reinforcement learning, utilizing the environment as an “external memory” and exhibiting highly intelligent behavior.