Tips on how Biologists and Physicists should talk to one another.

[ZapperZ]

This is not only useful to biologists and physicists, but also to anyone wanting to engage with biologists and/or physicists.

Thirteen tips for engaging with physicists, as told by a biologist

Twelve tips for engaging with biologists, as told by a physicist

Zz.

 

[BillTre]

Great subject!

I have worked with/around a lot of physics turned biologists. Almost half the labs I have worked in were labs of former physicists and I've been in institutes where a physical approach in biological questions is common. Many who are successful in these settings display traits similar to those described in your links.

Rote learning in biology is overrated in my opinion. I don't really think anyone works that way.
It seems more like a easy way to blow-off a lot of mindless work.
For me anyway, it is more like lots of details fitting (or waiting to fit into, in the case of outstanding problems) into larger conceptual packages (like evolution ("nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution") or the molecular basis of biological functions). Those details, relevant to whatever it is I am currently interested in, are the limits to the rote learning I am usually interested in. Other details are for looking up.
Knowing how to look things up is an important skill!
Consider all the various particles in particle physics. Learning all their names and properties would be like rote learning to me and bore me to death.
Understanding the conceptual basis for how they are analyzed/organized on the other hand is much more interesting.
I can remember a lot of biology details because I can slot them into a conceptual framework where they make sense. This provides a story like way to tie them together, which is the basis of many of memorization strategies.
Neuroanatomy, which has lots of details, provides good examples of this.

The point about concepts seems to me a very good one.
Presenting biological concepts in an understandable way to non-biologists is one of my prime directives.
I consider concepts an important basis of thought.
In biology, concepts both pile on top of and relate tangentally to other concepts.
Biology actually profoundly conceptual. The details just back this up.

An important skill is knowing how to ask good questions of people in a way that doesn't put them off but still elicits the information you want.
When I took classes (formerly), I often ask a lot of questions because if I don't understand some aspect of things.
Many students don't ask questions (often it seems out of fear of appearing stupid). This is usually not a very important concern. After classes, people would tell me thanks for asking the question, because they had the same question. Lecturers are often glad to deal with questions of understanding because they want their students to understand things. Even if not all your questions are great, some probably will be, and those will more likely be what others remember.

Jargon is a collection of words used by a subgroup of the larger population (such as a field of research). Explaining what the jargon terms mean is usually required before someone outside that field can understand what you talking about. Using a larger number of more common words (or pictures) is often required to produce the understanding in novices to a subject than the more efficient use of exact jargonistic words those already indoctrinated in a field are familiar with.

 

[morrobay]

What are some questions a physicist would ask a biologist? And what questions would biologist ask a physicist?

 

[russ_watters]

This is not only useful to biologists and physicists, but also to anyone wanting to engage with biologists and/or physicists.

I conclude from this that biologists are approximately 8% easier to get along with than physicists.

 

[BillTre]

What are some questions a physicist would ask a biologist? And what questions would biologist ask a physicist?

Here are some examples I could think of:

1) A biologist might ask a physicist about the strength of different physical forces between cells in a tissue. For a long time differences in cell to cell adhesion have often been proposed and demonstrated in the sorting of cells into groups where like cells clump with like cells but separate from other cells in a larger group of cells. How they depend upon different cell surface molecule numbers and grouping of the molecules and how they could form gradients of cell-cell adhesion strength across a tissue and how they could affect the shape that the tissue forms.
Example here
Some of this could be (in theory) calculated (given the proper data). What can be determined about the strength of cell-cell adhesion based on the strength of molecule-molecule adhesion forces. The inter-molecular forces can be determined with atomic force microscopy. How is adhesive strength affected by clustering the molecules on the cells's surfaces? Lots of these kinds of questions here.

2) A neurobiologist modelling cellular neurobiology might model the cell structure (based on microscopy) and the synaptic function based on electrophysiology, and want to know how the timecourse and movement of incoming ions (or activated second messenger molecules) within dendrites (cell branches) which could activate other processes (like activating voltage sensitive channels or enzymes at different locations) in the cell.

A molecular biologist might have questions about how a particular protein folds as it comes out of the ribosome amino acid by amino acid. This is an extremely complex problem where the different intra-molecular forces between different amino acids along with the bending constraints on the lengthening string of amino acids changes as additional amino acids are extruded from the ribosome. This can be made more complex because the extending amino acid chain can interact with chaparoon proteins that help proteins take the desired shape and further complexified by chemical modifications of the proteins after they take their initial form.

3) A microscopist might want to use a method like FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) to determine went to molecules get close together, or might want to modify their two photon confocal microscope to work in the IR in order to obtain accurate information about structures buried deep in tissue where visible light does not penetrate well.

4) Questions about the biomechanics of moving animals.

5) Questions about sound localization, fro example how sound from a particular source will be hear at the two ears of an owl locating a prey in the dark based on its sounds.

There are many others.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Nice articles. I'd add (for both sides):

Think more about how the probability of the effect changes with the strength of the purported causal factor.

There are far fewer deterministic relationships in biology. It's almost all probabilities. The slowness of biologists to think in proper terms about probabilities is a great limitation for many of them and often one of the most fruitful directions in which a physicist can guide them.

 

[Keith_McClary]

xkcd