The lung has so much space that the spreading virus actually doesn't fill the whole lung with virus. How many of those patches there are in our work says how much virus you're then able to produce in the lung and potentially spread to others. The alternative hypothesis which I think has been ignored sort of still maybe too much in this pandemic is that the virus is aerosolized. So it's more like cigarette smoke in a room, right? It's in tiny little particles. And when you breathe those in through this fractal branching airway, if you take one breath in, that breath goes to the first tube and then it divides into the next two as well.
How do you model a complex system? Traditionally we would observe how the system is behaving and create equations to mimic this behaviour, but this doesn't work for complex systems. This is because the interactions between agents in a complex system can significantly impact the system's overall behaviour.
In today's episode, Melanie Moses, Professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico, will answer this question. She'll introduce us to agent-based models, which are very different to how we traditionally model systems. More specifically, Melanie will explain how she used agent-based models to understand the spread of coronavirus in the lungs.
Connect:
This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.