By Gregory Forest, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Remarkable advances in instrumentation and experimental technique provide unprecedented insight into in vivo biological fluids. Experiments and data will be presented from three such fluids:  native DNA within the nucleus of live yeast; highly irregular plasma membrane morphologies of diverse mammalian cell lines; and Nature's barrier fluid, mucus, which protects every organ in the human body not covered by skin.  Analysis of the data, mathematical models we have derived to understand these biological systems, results thus far,  and remaining significant open problems, will be presented.