Biological Physics
In this work, the calculation of Casimir forces across thin DNA films is carried out based on the Lifshitz theory. The variations of Casimir forces due to the DNA thicknesses, volume fractions of containing water, covering media and…
The spatial organization of cell membrane glycoproteins and glycolipids is critical for mediating the binding of ligands, receptors, and macromolecules on the plasma membrane. However, we currently do not have the methods to quantify the…
Life evolved organisms to adapt dynamically to their environment and autonomously exhibit behaviours. While complex behaviours in organisms are typically associated with the capability of neurons to process information, the unicellular…
This article investigates the emergence of phase synchronization in a network of randomly connected neurons by chemical synapses. The study uses the classic Hodgkin-Huxley model to simulate the neuronal dynamics under the action of a train…
Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock, creating complex and often irreversible configurations. This physical phenomenon is…
It is known that if odors are presented to an olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) in a sub-threshold concentration -- i.e., when the average value of the number of the ORN bound receptor proteins (RPs) is insufficient for the generation of…
Under many physiological and pathological conditions such as division and migration, cells undergo dramatic deformations, under which their mechanical integrity is supported by cytoskeletal networks (i.e. intermediate filaments, F-actin,…
Spatiotemporal patterns are often modeled using reaction-diffusion equations, which combine complex reactions between constituents with ideal diffusive motion. Such descriptions neglect physical interactions between constituents, which…
Throughout our history, we, humans, have sought to better control and understand our environment. To this end, we have extended our natural senses with a host of sensors-tools that enable us to detect both the very large, such as the…
While studying nucleic acids to reveal the weak interactions responsible for their three-dimensional structure and for their interactions with drugs, we also contributed to the field of biomolecular mass spectrometry, both in terms of…
In this short paper, the results of the paper by Drab et al. (Eur. Phys. J. E (2022) 45:79) are described in the framework of wave mechanics and mathematical physics based on common understandings. The attention is focused on properties of…
In the present paper we address the problem of the energy downconversion of the light absorbed by a protein into its internal vibrational modes. We consider the case in which the light receptors are fluorophores either naturally…
Elastic filaments are vital to biological, physical and engineering systems, from cilia driving fluid in the lungs to artificial swimmers and micro-robotics. Simulating slender structures requires intricate balance of elastic, body, active,…
Since the seminal work of Powell, the relationships between the population growth rate, the probability distributions of generation time, and the distribution of cell age have been known for the bacterial population in a steady state of…
The gaits of undulating animals arise from a complex interaction of their central nervous system, muscle, connective tissue, bone, and environment. As a simplifying assumption, many previous studies have often assumed that sufficient…
Gene expression profiles are essential in identifying different cancer phenotypes. Clustering gene expression datasets can provide accurate identification of cancerous cell lines, but this task is challenging due to the small sample size…
The fluctuation-dissipation theorem describes the intimate connection between the Brownian diffusion of thermal particles and their drag coefficients. In the simple case of spherical particles, it takes the form of the Stokes-Einstein…
Cells maintain a stable size as they grow and divide. Inspired by the available experimental data, most proposed models for size homeostasis assume size control mechanisms that act on a timescale of one generation. Such mechanisms lead to…
Self-replicability is the unique attribute observed in all the living organisms and the question how the life was physically initiated could be equivalent to the question how self-replicating informative polymers were formed in the abiotic…
Motivated by experimental observations, we investigate a variant of the cocktail party problem: the detection of a weak periodic stimulus in the presence of fluctuations and another periodic stimulus which is stronger than the periodic…