Welcome to Quantum Magazine's podcast.

Each episode we bring you stories about developments in science and mathematics.

I'm Susan Vallett.

Imagine packing all of the people in the world into the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

We're all jammed shoulder to shoulder, but we've got superpowers and charged past each other

at insanely high speeds.

That gives you an idea of how densely crowded it is in a typical cell filled with 5 billion

proteins, and new discoveries are shedding light on how those cells work. That's next.

While you're listening to podcasts, remember to check out the other Quantum Magazine podcast,

The Joy of X. Host Steven Strogatz interviews top-tier scientists and mathematicians. New

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In a busy cell, enzymes need to find their substrates, and signaling molecules need to find their

receptors. This allows the cell to carry out the work of growing, dividing, and surviving.

If cells were sloshing bags of evenly mixed cytoplasm, that would be hard to do, but they're not. Membrane-bounded organelles

help to organize some of the contents. They compartmentalize sets of materials and provide

surfaces that enable important processes like the production of ATP, the biochemical fuel of cells,

but they're only one source of order.

Recent experiments reveal that some proteins spontaneously gather into transient assemblies called condensates. It's a response to molecular forces that balance transitions between

the formation and dissolution of droplets

inside the cell. Condensates are sometimes referred to as membrane-less organelles. They can sequester

...