Audio / Video

The Role of Chance in the Survival of the Fittest

  • 01:03:15

Description

Population expansions are ubiquitous in nature. They control the speed of many important dynamical processes, including multicellular development, biological evolution and epidemic outbreaks. Yet, the theoretical description of spreading behaviors has been limited largely to mean-field models that ignore the randomness inherent to living systems. In this talk, I present theoretical arguments and experimental results that elucidate how noise influences spreading processes on many scales, ranging from cellular scales, where jamming cells impede their own expansion, to global scales, where epidemic spread relies on rare long-range jumps. Our results underscore that carrying excellent genes does not guarantee success in evolution-the pure luck of being in the right place at the right time can be equally, or more, important.

Details

Title

The Role of Chance in the Survival of the Fittest

Creator

University of California, Berkeley. Dept. of Physics

Published

Berkeley, CA, University of California, Berkeley, Dept. of Physics, September 19, 2016

Full Collection Name

Physics Colloquia

Type

Video

Format

Lecture.

Extent

1 streaming video file

Other Physical Details

digital, sd., col.

Archive

Physics Library

Note

Recorded at a colloquium held on September 19, 2016, sponsored by the Dept. of Physics, University of California, Berkeley.

originally produced as an .mts file in 2016

Speakers: Oskar Hallatschek.

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Collection

Physics Colloquia

Tracks

colloquia/9-19-16Hallatschek.mp4 01:03:15

Linked Resources

View record in Digital Collections.