graduate

Bacterial Collective Behaviors and Decision Making

TYPEColloquium
Speaker:Professor Eshel Ben-Jacob
Affiliation:Tel Aviv University
Date:31.05.2012
Time:16:30
Location:Lidow Rosen Auditorium (323)
Abstract:

Bacteria, the first and most fundamental of all organisms, lead rich social life in complex hierarchical communities. Collectively, they gather information


from the environment, learn from past experience, and take decisions. To solve the new encountered problems they first assess the problem via collective


sensing, recall stored information of past experience and then they all participate in distributed information processing.   The billions of bacteria in the


colony use sophisticated communication strategies to link the intracellular computation networks of each bacterium (including signaling pathways of


billions of molecules) into a network of networks. I will then show illuminating movies of swarming intelligence of live bacteria in which they


solve challenging optimization problems for collective decision making. I will explain that current game theory is too simplistic to account for bacteria's


decision making and that understanding bacteria's reactions to stressful and hazardous conditions may help to understand human decision-making processes.


Bacteria are simpler yet they can effectively control the individual decision process leading to group decisions for the well-being of the entire colony.