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GreenLab Model is a functional-structural plant growth model that combines both organogenesis (at each cycle, new organs are created with respect to genetic rules) and photosynthesis (organs are filled with the biomass produced by the…
With the aim to parallelize and monitor biological or biochemical phenomena, trapping and immobilization of objects such as particles, droplets or cells in microfluidic devices has been an intense area of research and engineering so far.…
Energy absorbing materials, like foams used in protective equipment, are able to undergo large deformations under low stresses, reducing the incoming stress wave below an injury or damage threshold. They are typically effective in absorbing…
Highly-optimized complex transport networks serve crucial functions in many man-made and natural systems such as power grids and plant or animal vasculature. Often, the relevant optimization functional is non-convex and characterized by…
Phyllotaxis describes the arrangement of florets, scales or leaves in composite flowers or plants (daisy, aster, sunflower, pinecone, pineapple). As a structure, it is a geometrical foam, the most homogeneous and densest covering of a large…
As a smaller grain, which is attached on larger one, is growing, it pushes also the larger one and other grains in its surrounding. In a simulation of similar system, repulsive force such as contact force based on linear spring-dashpot…
Light can exert forces on objects, promising to propel a meter-scale lightsail to near the speed of light. The key to address many challenges in such an ambition hinges on the nanostructuring of lightsails to tailor their optical scattering…
Nearly a decade ago it was discovered that the spherical cell body of the alga $Chlamydomonas~reinhardtii$ can act as a lens to concentrate incoming light onto the cell's membrane-bound photoreceptor and thereby affect phototaxis. Since…
Cells contain elaborate and interconnected networks of protein polymers which make up the cytoskeleton. The cytoskeleton governs the internal positioning and movement of vesicles and organelles, and controls dynamic changes in cell…
Efficient devices for light harvesting and photon sensing are fundamental building blocks of basic energy science and many essential technologies. Recent efforts have turned to biomimicry to design the next generation of light-capturing…
The paper studies a PDE model for the growth of a tree stem or a vine, having the form of a differential inclusion with state constraints. The equations describe the elongation due to cell growth, and the response to gravity and to external…
Why do plants reflect in the green and have a 'red edge' in the red, and should extrasolar photosynthesis be the same? We provide: 1) a brief review of how photosynthesis works; 2) an overview of the diversity of photosynthetic organisms,…
Plant morphogenesis relies on dynamic growth deformations at the cell and tissue scales driven by osmotic fluxes. A mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon demands a physical framework that integrates cell imbibition, tissue mechanics,…
Basic considerations of lens detection and identification indicate that a wide field survey of the types planned for weak lensing and Type Ia SNe with SNAP are close to optimal for the optical detection of strong lenses. Such a…
The Victoria Amazonica plant, often known as the Giant Water Lily, has the largest floating spherical leaf in the world, with a maximum leaf diameter of 3 meters. It spreads its leaves by the force of its spines and creates a large shadow…
Inspired by natural cellular materials such as trabecular bone, lattice structures have been developed as a new type of lightweight material. In this paper we present a novel method to design lattice structures that conform with both the…
Gravitational lensing allows us to probe the structure of matter on a broad range of astronomical scales, and as light from a distant source traverses an intervening galaxy, compact matter such as planets, stars, and black holes act as…
Optomechanics, the study of the mechanical interaction of light with matter, has proven to be a fruitful area of research that has yielded many notable achievements, including the direct detection of gravitational waves in kilometer-scale…
Microscopy and optical imaging are drastically limited by the inhomogeneities encountered by the light while propagating from the object of interest to the detection system. In this context, adaptive optics and wavefront manipulation are…
This paper presents AlphaGarden: an autonomous polyculture garden that prunes and irrigates living plants in a 1.5m x 3.0m physical testbed. AlphaGarden uses an overhead camera and sensors to track the plant distribution and soil moisture.…