Collins Conference Room
Seminar
US Mountain Time
Our campus is closed to the public for this event.
Massimo Vergassola (University of California, San Diego)
Abstract. Soaring of birds, bacterial chemotaxis and olfactory searches are examples of navigation in the presence of complex orientation cues. I shall first review those natural examples and focus then on olfaction-guided navigation, where the complexity of the cues arises from the physics of the turbulent transport of odors. Even though the olfactory system of many animals, e.g. insects and rodents, is exquisitely sensitive, odor detections become more and more intermittent and sporadic as the distance to the source increase. I shall discuss the physics that causes those features and the consequences for olfactory search strategies, both for robots and animals.