The lecture by David Zwicker has been canceled. The talk will still take place at a later date, and details will be shared soon.
Lecture topic: Droplets Come to Life
Droplets, which organize the cytosol of present-day cells, might have played a crucial role in the origin of life. These droplets form complex, active entities, which exhibit surprisingly many traits commonly associated with living creatures. In this talk, I will demonstrate physical principles of how molecules spontaneously organize into droplets. These droplets form well-defined entities separated from their surroundings and can metabolize elements in their vicinity to control their size and shape, move around, and even divide. Despite these hallmarks of life, current models lack the internal complexity required for information processing and the adaptation necessary for evolution. I will briefly speculate on how we could incorporate these aspects in the future.
