OIST scientists have gained new insight into the abnormal brain activity underlying Parkinson’s disease. In a mouse model of the disease, the scientists observed that one group of neurons in a particular brain region--the striatum–fire in sync and dominate the overall activity of that region. When striatal neurons are stimulated continuously, they exhibit this abnormal behavior. By stimulating the neurons in precise pulses, the researchers observed that the neurons returned to their normal activity pattern, with groups of cells firing in turn.    

ABSTRACT: With more than 2 million species already described, and many more millions undiscovered or extinct, the size of the Tree of Life is immense. Throughout much of human history our species has felt a deep connection to the other species on our planet. The Tree of Life has now emerged as a grand symbol and organizing principle for biodiversity, one that deftly threads scientific and cultural meaning, providing a unique connector to the public. Yet it required over 150 years from the time of Darwin who referred to “The Great Tree of Life” in the mid 1800s to actually build the first tree of all life in 2015. Put simply, building huge family trees of species is very hard, rivaling the most difficult problems in physics and astronomy. Thus, building the first tree of all named life (all 2.3 million species) was a true “grand challenge” or a “moonshot” for biology. Knowledge of the Tree of Life is also crucial for human survival and well-being – relationships have predictive value, with downstream practical benefits that include the discovery of medicines, crop improvement, improved approaches to conservation, and a better understanding of species’ response to climate change. Yet the Tree of Life is under immense threat in the Anthropocene. We are therefore working on several methods of engaging the public on the importance of biodiversity via the Tree of Life metaphor. No matter what scale and medium, the storytelling will convey why knowledge of the Tree of Life is important for human well-being and survival. SHORT BIOGRAPHY of Prof. Douglas Soltis Douglas Soltis is a Distinguished Professor in the Florida Museum of Natural History and Department of Biology at the University of Florida. He studies plant evolution using genomic and informatic approaches; interests include genome doubling (polyploidy), genome evolution, building the tree of life, and angiosperm diversification. Soltis has reconstructed relationships among major lineages of flowering plants. With others, he proposed a new classification for angiosperms (APG system). He worked with Chinese collaborators to build a tree of life for the plants of China. Soltis is part of a group that built the first-draft tree of life for all 2.3 million named species on Earth. He and others clarified the ancestral angiosperm via the Amborella Genome Project. He has also developed Tragopogon (Compositae) as a model for the study of polyploid evolution. He has over 500 publications, including papers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Science and Nature; and 8 books. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Several of these areas are discussed in the following link: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/soltis-lab/doug-soltis/ SHORT BIOGRAPHY of Prof. Pamela Soltis She is a Distinguished Professor and Curator in the Florida Museum of Natural History and Department of Biology at the University of Florida. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, she focuses on evolutionary patterns and processes that have generated the Tree of Life of plants. She is passionate about the importance of the Tree for human well-being and sharing the grandeur of the Tree with college students and the public.

Researchers from the Biological Physics Theory Unit and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam conducted local linear analyses to reduce the complex posture movements of the nematode worm C. elegans to simpler components -- analogous to breaking spoken language into phonemes. The top video displays a snippet of posture behavior of C. elegans which is automatically decomposed into reversal, coiling and forward movements (bottom).

Many people came to the OIST Science Festival 2018 to enjoy the world of science.

Dr. Johannes Schönke and Prof. Eliot Fried of the OIST Mathematics, Mechanics, and Materials Unit have introduced a new class of kaleidocycles into the world. They call them Möbius Kaleidocycles because they resemble the famous Möbius band, a geometrical object with a characteristic topology. These mystifying objects can be turned inside-out continuously and have unique mathematical properties. While classical kaleidocycles typically have six hinges, the new class of kaleidocycles can have seven or more. Not only are these objects beautiful to see, but they could also have very practical applications in a variety of fields.

Welcome to I²: the Innovation Square Startup Incubator at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST). I² is a facility where entrepreneurs from across the planet can come to come together to bring their ideas to market. With sophisticated laboratory facilities, state-of-the-art equipment and the knowledge of some of the world’s best scientists, OIST is the ideal location to develop your ideas to fruition. Coming together with established companies and experienced investors, I² can turn science into success! Learn more and apply to the Innovation Square Incubator  

Abstract: Human desire to communicate secretly is at least as old as writing itself and goes back to the beginnings of our civilisation. The struggle between code-makers and code-breakers had several times affected the course of history and the formidable mathematical task of breaking increasingly more complicated ciphers contributed to the development of computer science. I will describe briefly how people protected information in the past and how it is done today. Physicists play increasingly more important role in this field because the process of sending and storing of information is always carried out by physical means, for example, by sound, light or radio waves. In particular, eavesdropping can be viewed as a measurement on a physical object, in this case the carrier of the information. What the eavesdropper can measure, and how, depends exclusively on the laws of physics. Using quantum phenomena physicists managed to design and to implement a system which is regarded to be unbreakable. I will outline the basic principles behind quantum cryptography. Biography: Artur Ekert is the Professor of Quantum Physics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, UK. He is also the Director of the Centre for Quantum Technologies and Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is one of the co-inventors of quantum cryptography, and his current research extends over most aspects of information processing in quantum-mechanical systems. He has worked with and advised several companies and government agencies. He is a recipient of several awards, including the 1995 Maxwell Medal and Prize by the Institute of Physics and the 2007 Royal Society Hughes Medal. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In his non-academic life, he is an avid scuba diver and pilot.

Abstract: The title does not concern the various crises in the world. The question is rather what fundamental materials research has to offer in pushing technologies and in meeting future societal needs. A key issue is energy efficiency which, in general, must seek solutions for the saving, storage and transformation of energy. This requires the right materials, in particular, of carbon materials. Their applications are nearly omnipresent, from thermal insulation and mechanical reinforcement to mobility. The synthetic expertise of the chemist is in high demand, and with the right carbon materials in hand – black or not – the future is bright. Biography: Klaus Müllen joined the Max Planck Society in 1989 as one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research. His PhD degree was granted by the University of Basel in 1972. He received his habilitation in 1977 at ETH, Zürich. In 1979 he became a Professor at the University of Cologne, and in 1983 at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University, Mainz. He owns about 60 patents, published over 1700 papers and has a h-index of 125.

An international team of researchers at OIST and University of Otago have used the Nobel-winning cryo-electron microscopy method to reconstruct the structure of Seneca Valley virus, abbreviated SVV, at near-atomic resolution. The structure shows how the virus binds to its cellular receptor, the Anthrax toxin receptor. Type 1 of this receptor is selectively expressed in up to 60% of human cancer cells and allows the virus to infect and destroy them while not affecting healthy cells. The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, reveals how the virus can recognize its target and leave normal tissue alone.  

A tour of a 3D rendering and atomic model of the Ebola virus nucleocapsid core based upon the cryo-EM reconstruction created by the OIST team.      

OIST Presidential Lecture Series "Science, Biology and the World's Future" by Dr. Bruce Alberts Friday, October 12, 2018 Abstract: There are many exciting challenges ahead for biologists. The chemistry of living organisms is so complicated that new scientific breakthroughs will be required to understand it. These understandings are certain to generate powerful new approaches for meeting human needs in health, agriculture, and the environment -- with model organisms like Drosophila continuing to provide essential shortcuts for deciphering the biology of humans and other multicellular organisms. In addition, to make sense of the complexity will require powerful mechanisms of analysis not yet invented. As one example, even when scientists have determined each of the hundreds of different molecular interactions that create the actin cytoskeletal system, and know the three-dimensional structures and rate constants for the formation and disassembly of each of its possible sub-complexes, the challenge of computing the outcomes will remain. In the same sense, most of the interesting properties of cells and organisms are “emergent properties”, resulting from a large network of interactions that have non-intuitive outcomes. Most broadly, the knowledge and the problem-solving skills of scientists are critical for every nation – no matter how rich or poor. Thus, for example, science has produced a deep understanding of the natural world that often enables an accurate prediction of the consequences of current actions on the future. In addition, every society needs the values of science: honesty, generosity, and an insistence on evidence while respecting all ideas and opinions regardless of their source of origin. To spread such values, science education needs to be redefined at all levels, with much less emphasis on the memorization of science facts and terms. Instead, we should be providing empowering experiences in problem-solving that take advantage of the curiosity that children bring to school and increase a student’s understanding of the world. Closely related changes in the introductory science courses in college, emphasizing “science as a way of knowing,” are the key to driving these reforms. Biography A prominent biochemist with a strong commitment to the improvement of science and mathematics education, Bruce Alberts, was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama in 2014 and the 2016 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science. Dr. Alberts served as Editor-in-Chief of Science (2009-2013) and as one of the first three United States Science Envoys (2009-2011). He is now the Chancellor’s Leadership Chair in Biochemistry and Biophysics for Science and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, to which he returned after serving two six-year terms as the president of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). During his tenure at the NAS, Alberts was instrumental in developing the landmark National Science Education Standards that have been implemented in school systems nationwide. The type of “science as inquiry” teaching we need, says Alberts, emphasizes “logical, hands-on problem solving, and it insists on having evidence for claims that can be confirmed by others. It requires work in cooperative groups, where those with different types of talents can discover them – developing self confidence and an ability to communicate effectively with others.” Alberts is also noted as one of the original authors of The Molecular Biology of the Cell, a preeminent textbook in the field soon to be in its sixth edition. For the period 2000 to 2009, he served as the co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, a new organization in Amsterdam governed by the presidents of 15 national academies of sciences and established to provide scientific advice to the world. Committed in his international work to the promotion of the “creativity, openness and tolerance that are inherent to science,” Alberts believes that “scientists all around the world must now band together to help create more rational, scientifically-based societies that find dogmatism intolerable.” Widely recognized for his work in the fields of biochemistry and molecular biology, Alberts has earned many honors and awards, including 16 honorary degrees. He currently serves on the advisory boards of more than 25 non-profit institutions, including the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

OIST Presidential Lecture Series "Origami - Mathematics, Science and Technology" by Prof. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan 2018/10/08 Origami, the exquisite craft of folding paper into three-dimensional shapes, has been practiced for millennia by artists and lay people. Prof. Mahadevan will discuss some physical aspects of rigid and soft origami associated with the weak and strong deformations of thin sheets of any material. The efficient packing properties of folded matter suggest that it ought to occur naturally in physical and biological systems, and he will show that they do indeed appear on a range of scales, e.g. in drying gels, wings, leaves and even your gut as a self-organized pattern. These physical manifestations of origami suggest the question of how to design the number, location and orientation of folds to create complex shapes. Prof. Mahadevan will finish his talk with a description of attempts to solve this inverse problem, and its generalizations. 【Prof. Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan】 Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University Professor of Physics and Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University L. Mahadevan FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society) graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and then received an M.S from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1995. He started his independent career on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996. In 2000, he was elected the Inaugural Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and a professorial fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge, the first Indian to be appointed professor to the Faculty of Mathematics there. He has been at Harvard since 2003. His work centers around using mathematics to understand the organization of matter in space and time, i.e. how it is shaped and how it flows, particularly at the scale observable by the unaided senses. Prof. Mahadevan’s work has been recognized by awards that include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation (2006-07),the MacArthur Foundation (2009-14), and the Radcliffe Institute (2014-15), and visiting professorships at Oxford, École Normale Supérieure (Paris), Berkeley and MIT.