Related papers: A viscoelastic deadly fluid in carnivorous pitcher…
We show how anisotropic, grooved features facilitate the trapping and directed transport of droplets on lubricated, liquid-shedding surfaces. Capillary action pins droplets to topographic surface features, enabling transport along the…
Flight on the two-dimensional air-water interface, with body weight supported by surface tension, is a unique locomotion strategy well adapted for the environmental niche on the surface of water. Although previously described in…
Pads of beetles are covered with long, deformable setae, each ending in a micrometric terminal plate coated with secretory fluid. It was recently shown that the layer of the pad secretion covering the terminal plates is responsible for the…
The effects of fluid elasticity on the swimming behavior of the nematode \emph{Caenorhabditis elegans} are experimentally investigated by tracking the nematode's motion and measuring the corresponding velocity fields. We find that fluid…
The underwater traps of the carnivorous plants of the Utricularia species catch their preys through the repetition of an "active slow deflation / passive fast suction" sequence. In this paper, we propose a mechanical model that describes…
The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is an invasive pest that can cause severe yield loss to soybeans in the northcentral United States. A tactic to counter this pest is the use of aphid-resistant soybean varieties.…
The toe pads of frogs consist of soft hexagonal structures and a viscous liquid contained between and within the hexagonal structures. It has been hypothesized that this configuration creates adhesion by allowing for long range capillary…
Scientific progress within the last few decades has revealed the functional morphology of an insect's sticky footpads -- a soft, sponge-like pad that secretes a thin liquid film. However, the physico-chemical mechanisms underlying their…
The carnivorous aquatic Waterwheel Plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa L.) and the closely related terrestrial Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula SOL. EX J. ELLIS) both feature elaborate snap-traps, which shut after reception of an external…
The carnivorous aquatic Waterwheel Plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa L.) and the closely related terrestrial Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula SOL. EX J. ELLIS) both feature elaborate snap-traps, which shut after reception of an external…
We investigate the nonlinear viscoelastic behavior of a biomimetic scale-covered beam in which shear-dependent complex fluids are trapped between overlapping scales under bending loads. These fluids mimic biological mucus and slime layers…
The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) does not only serve as the textbook model for a carnivorous plant, but also has long intrigued both botanists and engineers with its rapidly closing leaf trap. The trap closure is triggered by two…
The motion of flexible fibers through structured fluidic environments is ubiquitous in nature and industrial applications. Most often, their dynamics results from the complex interplay between internal elastic stresses, contact forces and…
Fluid-suspended microorganisms have evolved different swimming and feeding strategies in order to cope with an environment dominated by viscous effects. For instance ciliated organisms rely on the collective motion of flexible appendices to…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…
Many microorganisms live and evolve in complex fluids. Examples include mammalian spermatozoa in cervical mucus, worms (e.g., \textit{C. elegans}) in wet soil, and bacteria (e.g., \textit{H. pylori}) in our stomach lining. Due to the…
Many swimming microorganisms, such as bacteria and sperm, use flexible flagella to move through viscoelastic media in their natural environments. In this paper we address the effects a viscoelastic fluid has on the motion and beating…
The local viscoelastic (VE) environment governs the motion of an embedded microsphere and consequently, pertinent dynamical phenomena. However, studying such phenomena with varying VE properties remains challenging for various reasons,…
Cord-forming fungi form extensive networks that continuously adapt to maintain an efficient transport system. As osmotically driven water uptake is often distal from the tips, and aqueous fluids are incompressible, we propose that growth…
The deformations of flagella are important in the motility of single- and multi-flagellated bacteria. Existing numerical methods have treated flagella as extensible filaments with a large extensional modulus, resulting in a stiff numerical…