Related papers: Cell Dissociation : A Cohesive Force of Hydrodynam…
Using a minimal model of cells or cohesive cell layers as continuum active elastic media, we examine the effect of substrate thickness and stiffness on traction forces exerted by strongly adhering cells. We obtain a simple expression for…
Here we report the results of an experimental study where we measure the hydrodynamic force acting on a plate which is lifted from a water surface, suddently starting to move upwards with an acceleration much larger than gravity. Our work…
Mechanical coupling between a cell and substrate relies on focal adhesions, clusters of adhesion proteins linking stress fibers (bundles of actin proteins) inside the cell with surrounding tissue. Focal adhesions have been demonstrated to…
Bacterial processes ranging from gene expression to motility and biofilm formation are constantly challenged by internal and external noise. While the importance of stochastic fluctuations has been appreciated for chemotaxis, it is…
Cell cell and cell matrix adhesions are fundamental in all multicellular organisms. They play a key role in cellular growth, differentiation, pattern formation and migration. Cell-cell adhesion is substantial in the immune response,…
Phagocytosis is the process by which cells, which are 5 to 10 times larger than the particle size, engulf particles, holding substantial importance in various biological contexts ranging from the nutrient uptake of unicellular organisms to…
Adhesive contact between a thin elastic sheet and a substrate in a liquid environment arises in a range of biological, physical and technological applications. By considering the dynamics of this process that naturally couples fluid flow,…
Quantifying the outcomes of cells collisions is a crucial step in building the foundations of a kinetic theory of living matter. Here, we develop a mechanical theory of such collisions by first representing individual cells as extended…
The adsorption and dissociation of isolated water molecule on Zr(0001) surface are theoretically investigated for the first time by using density-functional theory calculations. Two kinds of adsorption configurations with almost the same…
We study the diffusiophoretic self-propulsion of a colloidal catalytic particle due to a surface chemical reaction in a vicinity of a solid wall. Diffusiophoresis is a chemico-mechanical transduction mechanism in which a concentration…
The behavior of liquid water under an electric field is a crucial phenomenon in science and engineering. However, its detailed description at a microscopic level is difficult to achieve experimentally. Here we report on the first ab initio…
The friction and adhesion between elastic bodies are strongly influenced by the roughness of the surfaces in contact. Here we develop a multiscale molecular dynamics approach to contact mechanics, which can be used also when the surfaces…
In this work we investigate the dissociation of CO$_2$ on Cu(110) by performing density functional theory calculations using the vdW-DF2 exchange-correlation functional, with a potential energy surface parameterized using artificial neural…
An elastic membrane that is forced to reside in a container smaller than its natural size will deform and, upon further volume reduction, eventually crumple. The crumpled state is characterized by the localization of energy in a complex…
We characterize the mechanical recovery of compliant silicone gels following adhesive contact failure. We establish broad, stable adhesive contacts between rigid microspheres and soft gels, then stretch the gels to large deformations by…
We report the effect of interstitial fluid on the extent of segregation by imaging the pile that results after bidisperse color-coded particles are poured into a silo. Segregation is sharply reduced and preferential clumping of small…
The evaporation of a tiny amount of water on the solid surface with different wettability has been studied by molecular dynamics simulations. We found that, as the surface changed from hydrophobicity to hydrophility, the evaporation speed…
A simple model for solid friction is analyzed. It is based on tangential springs representing interlocked asperities of the surfaces in contact. Each spring is given a maximal strain according to a probability distribution. At their maximal…
We study the formation of the dynamic adsorption layer when a bubble is released in a tank containing water with a tiny amount of surfactant. The influence of the sorption kinetic constants is examined by comparing the experiments with…
We address a molecular dissociation mechanism that is known to occur when a H 2 molecule approaches a catalyst with its molecular axis parallel to the surface. It is found that molecular dissociation is a form of quantum dynamical phase…