Shi-Wei Chu
National Taiwan University
Associate Editor, Biophysical Reports

What are you currently working on that excites you?

Trying to understand the origin of consciousness through developing tools that enable us to observe neurons “talking” to each other in a living brain. The challenge is to achieve simultaneous high-speed, deep-tissue, sub-cellular resolution, 4D (xyzt) acquisition. Because it is indeed difficult, it is exciting!

What have you read lately that you found really interesting or stimulating?

A paper: Stefan Hell’s recent paper in Nature Physics, which states that a donut beam itself is good enough to achieve resolution way beyond the diffraction limit (Hensel, T. A., et al., Diffraction minima resolve point scatterers at few hundredths of the wavelength. Nat. Phys. 21:412–420). It opens up a new field in super-resolution microscopy, without the need of any blinking or on/off fluorescence!

Also, a book: The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul Davies. Physics literally studies how matter works, while physiology explores how life works; before the 16th century, the two terms were actually synonymous, both rooted in the Greek “physis” (“nature”). This book continues this shared quest by revisiting Schrödinger’s “What Is Life?” Through thermodynamics and information theory, it presents life as an information-processing system, linking Maxwell’s demon, epigenetics, cancer, quantum mechanics, and consciousness.