We are honored to announce the 32nd Arnold Sommerfeld Lecture Series featuring Professor Mehran Kardar (MIT), a pioneer in statistical physics and recipient of the 2025 Boltzmann Medal. Taking place January 13–15, 2026, the series begins with a public lecture on the mysterious "Force of Nothing" in the quantum void, followed by expert talks on active matter and biological population dynamics. Join us for this exciting exploration of non-equilibrium systems and fluctuation phenomena. more

Many cellular processes rely on striking spatial patterns of proteins that constantly assemble and disassemble on membranes. In our new study, published in Nature Physics, we show that these active protein patterns can behave like foams and multicomponent liquid mixtures, even though there are no mechanical forces between the molecules. We introduce the concepts of “Turing mixtures” and “Turing foams” and develop a theory that predicts how their interface geometry and typical length scale are selected. more