Related papers: Muscle-Cell-Based "Living Diodes"
The cytosol state in living cell is treated as homogeneous phase equilibrium with a special feature: the pressure of one phase is positive and the pressure of the other is negative. From this point of view the cytosol is neither solution…
Fluid pumping and the generation of electric current by living tissues are required during morphogenetic processes and for maintainance of homeostasis. How these flows emerge from active and passive ion transport in cells has been well…
Our fluid dynamics video shows the response of a layer of viscoelastic fluid to an array of four-roll mills steadily rotating underneath. When the relaxation time of the fluid is sufficiently long, the fluid divides into "cells" with a…
A new type of microfluidic system for biological cell manipulation, a CMOS/microfluidic hybrid, is demonstrated. The hybrid system starts with a custom-designed CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) chip fabricated in a…
Photons are nonchiral particles: their handedness can be both left and right. However, when light is transversely confined, it can locally exhibit a transverse spin whose orientation is fixed by the propagation direction of the photons.…
The production of mechanical stresses in living organisms largely relies on localized, force-generating active units embedded in filamentous matrices. Numerical simulations of discrete fiber networks with fixed boundaries have shown that…
We measure different contributions to entropy production in a living functional epithelial tissue. We do this by extracting the functional dynamics of development while at the same time quantifying fluctuations. Using the translucent…
The building of minimal self-reproducing systems with a physical embodiment (generically called protocells) is a great challenge, with implications for both theory and applied sciences. Although the classical view of a living protocell…
We present the first use of a waveform-dependent absorbing metasurface for high-power pulsed surface currents. The new type of nonlinear metasurface, composed of circuit elements including diodes, is capable of storing high power pulse…
A model of multicellular systems with several types of cells is developed from the phase field model. The model is presented as a set of partial differential equations of the field variables, each of which expresses the shape of one cell.…
Eukaryotic swimming cells such as spermatozoa, algae or protozoa use flagella or cilia to move in viscous fluids. The motion of their flexible appendages in the surrounding fluid induces propulsive forces that balance with the viscous drag…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
Microelectronic morphogenesis is the creation and maintenance of complex functional structures by microelectronic information within shape-changing materials. Only recently has in-built information technology begun to be used to reshape…
Living cells employ excitable reaction-diffusion waves for internal cellular functions, in which curvature-inducing proteins are often involved. However, the role of their mechanochemical coupling is not well understood. Here, we report the…
Membrane tubes (spicules) arise in cells, or artificial membranes, in the nonlinear deformation regime due to, e.g. the growth of microtubules, actin filaments or sickle hemoglobin fibers towards a membrane. We calculate the axial force…
The physical mechanism on meridians (acupuncture lines) is studied and a theoretical model is proposed. The meridians are explained as an alternating system responsible for the integration and the regulation of life in addition to the…
Despite widespread interest, ultrathin and highly flexible light-emitting devices that can be seamlessly integrated and used for flexible displays, wearables, and as bioimplants remain elusive. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with…
Previous models of the cerebrovascular smooth muscle cell have not addressed the interaction between the electrical, chemical and mechanical components of cell function during the development of active tension. These models are primarily…
Death ligand mediated apoptotic activation is a mode of programmed cell death that is widely used in cellular and physiological situations. Interest in studying death ligand induced apoptosis has increased due to the promising role of…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…