Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 5, 2026
13:44
Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology
Published on: March 11, 2015
What's all the noise about developmental stochasticity?
1Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Pfotenhauerstrasse 108, 01307 Dresden, Germany. oates@mpi-cbg.de
Development (Cambridge, England)
|January 27, 2011
Summary
Researchers explored randomness in cell and developmental biology. This workshop integrated experimental and theoretical approaches to understand stochastic behavior across biological scales.
Area of Science:
- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
- Systems Biology
Background:
- A workshop convened in October 2010 at Cumberland Lodge, UK, focused on the role of randomness in biological systems.
- Organized by James Briscoe and Alfonso Marinez-Arias, the event was part of a series by The Company of Biologists to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.
Framework:
- The workshop's framework encouraged integration of diverse biological scales, from tissue to cellular levels.
- Discussions incorporated both experimental and theoretical methodologies to investigate biological phenomena.
Implementation:
- The meeting brought together researchers from various scientific disciplines.
- Talks presented a range of studies examining stochastic behavior in different biological contexts.
Implications:
- The workshop highlighted the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in understanding complex biological processes.
- Insights gained contribute to a broader comprehension of randomness in cell and developmental biology.
Related Concept Videos
01:20Random and Systematic Errors
Scientists always try their best to record measurements with the utmost accuracy and precision. However, sometimes errors do occur. These errors can be random or systematic. Random errors are observed due to the inconsistency or fluctuation in the measurement process, or variations in the quantity itself that is being measured. Such errors fluctuate from being greater than or less than the true value in repeated measurements. Consider a scientist measuring the length of an earthworm using a...
01:20Random and Systematic Errors
Scientists always try their best to record measurements with the utmost accuracy and precision. However, sometimes errors do occur. These errors can be random or systematic. Random errors are observed due to the inconsistency or fluctuation in the measurement process, or variations in the quantity itself that is being measured. Such errors fluctuate from being greater than or less than the true value in repeated measurements. Consider a scientist measuring the length of an earthworm using a...
03:33Genetic Drift
Natural selection—probably the most well-known evolutionary mechanism—increases the prevalence of traits that enhance survival and reproduction. However, evolution does not merely propagate favorable traits, nor does it always benefit populations.Life is not fair. A deer grazing contentedly in a field can have her meal cut tragically short by a bolt of lightning. If the doomed doe is one of only three in the population, 1/3 of the population’s gene pool is lost. Random events like this can...
01:10Propagation of Uncertainty from Systematic Error
The atomic mass of an element varies due to the relative ratio of its isotopes. A sample's relative proportion of oxygen isotopes influences its average atomic mass. For instance, if we were to measure the atomic mass of oxygen from a sample, the mass would be a weighted average of the isotopic masses of oxygen in that sample. Since a single sample is not likely to perfectly reflect the true atomic mass of oxygen for all the molecules of oxygen on Earth, the mass we obtain from this particular...
01:10Standard Deviation
The most commonly used measure of variation is the standard deviation. It is a numerical value measuring how far data values are from their mean. The standard deviation value is small when the data are concentrated close to the mean, exhibiting slight variation or spread. The standard deviation value is never negative, it is either positive or zero. The standard deviation is larger when the data values are more spread out from the mean, which means the data values are exhibiting more...
00:59Propagation of Uncertainty from Random Error
An experiment often consists of more than a single step. In this case, measurements at each step give rise to uncertainty. Because the measurements occur in successive steps, the uncertainty in one step necessarily contributes to that in the subsequent step. As we perform statistical analysis on these types of experiments, we must learn to account for the propagation of uncertainty from one step to the next. The propagation of uncertainty depends on the type of arithmetic operation performed on...