OIST Presidential Lecture: Prof. Makoto Fujita University Distinguished Professor at The University of Tokyo "Coordination Self-Assembly: From Origins to the Latest Advances" Molecular self-assembly based on coordination chemistry has made an explosive development in recent years. Over the last 30 years, we have been showing that the simple combination of transition-metal geometry (typically, a 90-degree coordination angle of Pd(II) center) with organic bridging ligands gives rise to the quantitative self-assembly of nano-sized, discrete organic frameworks. Representative examples include square molecules (1990), linked-ring molecules (1994), cages (1995), capsules (1999), and tubes (2004) that are self-assembled from simple and small components. Originated from these earlier works, current interests in our group focus on i) molecular confinement effects in coordination cages, ii) solution chemistry in crystalline porous complexes (as applied to the “crystalline sponge method”)[1], and iii) and giant self-assemblies[2], as disclosed in this lecture. About the Speaker Makoto Fujita is University Distinguished Professor at The University of Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph.D. degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1987.  After working at Chiba University and the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS) at Okazaki, in 1999, he was appointed as a full professor at Nagoya University.  In 2002, he moved to the University of Tokyo as a full professor. In 2019, he received his current title from the University.  He is a recipient of the 2018 Wolf Prize in Chemistry. References: [1] Y. Inokuma, S. Yoshioka, J. Ariyoshi, T. Arai, Y. Hitora, K. Takada, S. Matsunaga, K. Rissanen, M. Fujita Nature 2013, 495, 461-466. [2] D. Fujita, Y. Ueda, S. Sato, N. Mizuno, T. Kumasaka, M. Fujita, Nature 2016, 540, 563.

OIST Presidential Lecture: Prof. Sidney Nagel Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor, The University of Chicago "Patterns in Nature" The commonplace is extraordinary! Examine closely the world around you and you’ll realize that many things that you take for granted are truly astonishing. Take, for example, a simple drop of liquid falling onto a surface: if the surface is cool and dry, the drop will likely splash; if the surface is hot, however, the drop simply hovers and never touches down. Consider another: when a liquid is compressed between two smooth surfaces, it forms an expected circular disk; but when the plates are separated, quite a different pattern emerges. This is a form of dilation symmetry caused by the penetration of space. It is all around and within us. In this talk, Prof Nagel emphasizes the surprises and elegance of how nature arranges the texture of our lives.

OIST Presidential Lecture: Prof. Paul Chaikin Julius and Roslyn Silver Professor of Physics at New York University "Random to Ordered: From Candies to Monster Space Crystals" The densest packing of spheres, although known for millennia to be a Face-Centered Cubic (FCC) crystal with volume fraction φFCC ~0.74, has only recently been proven mathematically (2014). An equally ancient problem is “Random Close Packing”, RCP, the densest packing of spheres poured into a jar described in Biblical times (Luke 6:38, KJV) as, “pressed down, and shaken together, and running over”. RCP has escaped a noncontroversial definition although many experiments and simulations agree to a value φRCP ~0.64. We have found that a simple model, “Random Organization”, RO, exhibits a dynamical phase transition between absorbing, 'dead', and active states that appears to have RCP as its critical endpoint. Invented to understand a reversible to irreversible transition in sheared colloids, RO finds RCP with emergent properties such as, randomness, isotropy, isostaticity, hyperuniformity and jamming. To close the book on the crystalline phase, we grew a single crystal on the international space station which found that FCC is the equilibrium structure as compared to the hexagonal close packed and the many other structures with φmax ~0.74

Slow motion movie capturing the moment when Mymecia nigrocinca jumps.

The common cuttlefish camouflages against a natural background. The animal often overshoots, pauses, and corrects. As the cuttlefish camouflages, high resolution cameras capture the real-time expansion and contraction of tens to hundreds of thousands of chromatophores.