Many biological phenomena are especially interesting from a physical point of view, and recent developments have made it possible to perform quantitative, "physics-style" experiments on many different biological systems. In this volume, composed largely of lectures at a summer workshop for students in 1991, many of those emerging problems in biophysics are surveyed, with emphasis on the confrontation between theory and experiment. The topics range from the structure and dynamics of individual biological molecules to the computational strategies of the nervous system.
Could information theory provide an ecological theory of sensory processing?, J. Atick; collective mode lifetimes and effects in bacteriorhodopsin, M. Hong and R. Austin; optimal real-time signal processing in the nervous system, W. Bialek; statistical mechanics and protein folding, H.S. Chan; physical contraints and optimal signal processing in a single cell organism, L. Kruglyak; the first picosecond vision - Raman studies of rhodopsin dynamics, G.R. Loppnow; finding electron transfer pathways, J.J. Reagan and J.N. Onuchic; time-frequency transforms and images of targets in the sonar of bats, J.A. Simmons.