Modeling navigation by weaver ants in an unfamiliar, featureless environment.

The motion of individual weaver ants from Oecophylla smaragdina was tracked within a small arena to study the algorithm that these ants use for navigation. The arena, a floor tile, was either clean or partly covered by a mild chemical repellent. Statistical properties of the observed motion of the ant can be described by a model that is analogous to the Langevin theory of the motion of Brownian particles.

Structural dynamics of E. coli single-stranded DNA binding protein reveal DNA wrapping and unwrapping pathways.

Escherichia coli single-stranded (ss)DNA binding (SSB) protein mediates genome maintenance processes by regulating access to ssDNA. This homotetrameric protein wraps ssDNA in multiple distinct binding modes that may be used selectively in different DNA processes, and whose detailed wrapping topologies remain speculative. Here, we used single-molecule force and fluorescence spectroscopy to investigate E.