Saturday 1 August 2009

Biological Membranes

It's been ages since my last post. This is because I've been busy doing lots of interesting physics, met a bunch of interesting physicists, maybe I'll write something about it. For now, something I've been meaning to write about for a while, and for once it's something that's timely.

The journal Soft Matter has an issue out with a membrane biophysics theme. You can read the editorial for yourself if you have access, otherwise make do with my ropey understanding of it. Soft Matter is a relatively new journal that I think is looking really good. Their website needs work but I'll leave that for my science 2.0 rant which is bubbling up.

So why am I interested in membranes (I'm not working on them, I'm just interested)? Well once again I'm interested in them as large system of small parts that make something amazing when they get together - ie statistical physics. So, here's my compressed guide to membranes: please remember I'm not a biologist, I'm very new to this, only barely understand it and I tend to over simplify things.