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Slime mould \emph{Physarum polycephalum} is a large single cell capable for distributed sensing, concurrent information processing, parallel computation and decentralised actuation. The ease of culturing and experimenting with Physarum…
The Physarum network expands or retracts in response to environmental stimuli, demonstrating an intelligent adaptive capability to locate optimal paths for nutrient transport. The underlying physical mechanism governing this intelligence…
Slime mould Physarum polycephalum builds up sophisticated networks to transport nutrients between distant part of its extended body. The slime mould's protoplasmic network is optimised for maximum coverage of nutrients yet minimum energy…
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum displays adaptive transport dynamics and network formation that have inspired its use as a model of biological computation. We develop a Lagrangian formulation of Physarum's adaptive dynamics on…
Eukaryotic cells are mechanically supported by a polymer network called the cytoskeleton, which consumes chemical energy to dynamically remodel its structure. Recent experiments in vivo have revealed that this remodeling occasionally…
The model organism Physarum polycephalum is known to perform decentralised problem solving despite absence of nervous system. Experimental evidence and modelling studies have linked these abilities, and in particular maze-solving, to some…
A biophysical model of epimorphic regeneration based on a continuum percolation process of fully penetrable disks in two dimensions is proposed. All cells within a randomly chosen disk of the regenerating organism are assumed to receive a…
Understanding vascular adaptation, namely what drives veins to shrink or grow, is key for the self-organization of flow networks and their optimization. From the top-down principle of minimizing flow dissipation at a fixed metabolic cost…
Many biological tissues feature a heterogeneous network of fibers whose tensile and bending rigidity contribute substantially to these tissues' elastic properties. Rigidity percolation has emerged as a important paradigm for relating these…
Network-forming organisms, like fungi and slime molds, dynamically reorganize their networks during foraging. The resulting re-routing of resource flows within the organism's network can significantly impact local ecosystems. In current…
This paper introduces Polyphorm, an interactive visualization and model fitting tool that provides a novel approach for investigating cosmological datasets. Through a fast computational simulation method inspired by the behavior of Physarum…
Many active systems are capable of forming intriguing patterns at scales significantly larger than the size of their individual constituents. Cyanobacteria are one of the most ancient and important phyla of organisms that has allowed the…
We study transport in synthetic, bi-disperse porous structures, with arrays of microchannels interconnected by a nanoporous layer. These structures are inspired by the xylem tissue in vascular plants, in which sap water travels from the…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…
A theoretical model based on the molecular interactions between a growing tumor and a dynamically evolving blood vessel network describes the transformation of the regular vasculature in normal tissues into a highly inhomogeneous tumor…
Plasmodium of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a very large eukaryotic microbe visible to the unaided eye. During its foraging behaviour the plasmodium spans sources of nutrients with a network of protoplasmic tubes. In this…
Many cells face search problems, such as finding food, mates or shelter, where their success depends on their search strategy. In contrast to other unicellular organisms, the slime mold Physarum polycephalum forms a giant network-shaped…
We investigate flow-driven amoeboid motility as exhibited by microplasmodia of Physarum polycephalum. A poroelastic two-phase model with rigid boundaries is extended to the case of free boundaries and substrate friction. The cytoskeleton is…
Biological cells can actively tune their intracellular architecture according to their overall shape. Here we explore the rheological implication of such coupling in a minimal model of a dense cellular material where each cell exerts an…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…