Diffusion at solid-liquid interfaces is crucial in many technological and biophysical processes. Although its behavior seems to be deceivingly simple, recent studies showing passive superdiffusive transport suggest that diffusion on surfaces may hide rich complexities. In particular, bulk-mediated diffusion occurs when molecules are transiently released from the surface to perform three-dimensi...

The persistence of extreme poverty is increasingly attributed to dynamic interactions between biophysical processes and economics, though there remains a dearth of integrated theoretical frameworks that can inform policy. Here, we present a stochastic model of disease-driven poverty traps. Whereas deterministic models can result in poverty traps that can only be broken by substantial external c...

Species delimitation is a major research focus in evolutionary biology because accurate species boundaries are a prerequisite for the study of speciation. New species delimitation methods (SDMs) can accommodate nonmonophyletic species and gene tree discordance as a result of incomplete lineage sorting via the coalescent model, but do not explicitly accommodate gene flow after divergence. Approx...

We discuss new examples of the constructive role of environmental fluctuations in biophysical processes, namely quantitative enhancement and qualitative sharpening of the outgoing signal in the intercellular signal transduction, e.g., in the synaptic links. An experimental check in a chemical flow reactor is suggested.

Marine larval dispersal is a complex biophysical process that depends on the effects of species biology and oceanography, leading to logistical difficulties in estimating connectivity among populations of marine animals with biphasic life cycles. To address this challenge, the application of multiple methodological approaches has been advocated, in order to increase confidence in estimates of p...

Supported lipid bilayers have proven effective as model membranes for investigating biophysical processes and in development of sensor and array technologies. The ability to modify lipid bilayers after their formation and in situ could greatly advance membrane technologies, but is difficult via current state-of-the-art technologies. Here we demonstrate a novel method that allows the controlled ...

Optogenetics is a new tool to study neuronal circuits that have been genetically modified to allow stimulation by flashes of light. We study recordings from single neurons within neural circuits under optogenetic stimulation. The data from these experiments present a statistical challenge of modeling a high-frequency point process (neuronal spikes) while the input is another high-frequency poin...

The purpose of the current meta-analysis was to compare the efficacy of core decompression (CD) and conservative treatment (CT) for saving femoral heads in patients with avascular necrosis of femoral head (ANFH). Four RCTs and two CCTs involving 323 hips with 24- to 48-months follow-up were included in this review. Our results suggested CD had a trend of favorable results in contrast to other C...

Green tea catechin and green tea extract are now recognized as non-toxic cancer preventives for humans. We first review our brief historical development of green tea cancer prevention. Based on exciting evidence that green tea catechin, (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in drinking water inhibited lung metastasis of B16 melanoma cells, we and other researchers have studied the inhibitory mech...

Pairs of Au nanoparticles have recently been proposed as "plasmon rulers" based on the dependence of their light scattering on the interparticle distance. Preliminary work has suggested that plasmon rulers can be used to measure and monitor dynamic distance changes over the 1- to 100-nm length scale in biology. Here, we substantiate that plasmon rulers can be used to measure dynamical biophysic...