Related papers: Rheological basis of skeletal muscle work loops
Cells and tissues exhibit oscillatory deformations during remodelling, migration or embryogenesis. Although it has been shown that these oscillations correlate with cell biochemical signalling, it is yet unclear the role of these…
We explain the origins of yield stress, shear-thinning, and normal stress differences in rigid fiber suspensions. We investigate the interplay between the hydrodynamic, colloidal attractive and repulsive, and inter-fiber contact…
Recurrent neural network-based reinforcement learning systems are capable of complex motor control tasks such as locomotion and manipulation, however, much of their underlying mechanisms still remain difficult to interpret. Our aim is to…
The field of evolutionary robotics uses principles of natural evolution to design robots. In this paper, we study the effect of adding a new module inspired by the skeletal muscle to the existing RoboGen framework: the linear actuator.…
We attribute similarities in the rheology of many soft materials (foams, emulsions, slurries, etc.) to the shared features of structural disorder and metastability. A generic model for the mesoscopic dynamics of ``soft glassy matter'' is…
A constitutive relation between stress and strain relative to a reference state is the basic assumption of elasticity theory. However, in living matter, force generation is governed by motor molecule activity, which does not depend on…
Dense suspensions of particles are relevant to many applications and are a key platform for developing a fundamental physics of out-of-equilibrium systems. They present challenging flow properties, apparently turning from liquid to solid…
The rheological behaviour of an emulsion made of an active polar component and an isotropic passive fluid is studied by lattice Boltzmann methods. Different flow regimes are found by varying the values of shear rate and extensile activity…
Bone is a stiff and though, hierarchical and continuously evolving material that optimizes its structure to respond to mechanical stimuli, which also govern growth and remodeling processes. However, a full understanding of the underlying…
While LLMs exhibit impressive fluency and factual recall, they struggle with robust causal reasoning, often relying on spurious correlations and brittle patterns. Similarly, traditional Reinforcement Learning agents also lack causal…
Active matter composed of energy-generating microscopic constituents is a promising platform to create autonomous functional materials. However, the very presence of these microscopic energy sources is what makes active matter prone to…
Transport networks, such as vasculature or river networks, provide key functions in organisms and the environment. They usually contain loops whose significance for the stability and robustness of the network is well documented. However,…
We report experimental measurements on the rheology of a dry granular material under a weak level of vibration generated by sound injection. First, we measure the drag force exerted on a wire moving in the bulk. We show that when the…
In contrast with ordinary materials, living matter drives its own motion by generating active, out-of-equilibrium internal stresses. These stresses typically originate from localized active elements embedded in an elastic medium, such as…
Biological condensates are assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids that form membraneless compartments in cells and play essential roles in cellular functions. In many cases they exhibit the physical properties of liquid droplets that…
We introduce the notion of a "walk with jumps", which we conceive as an evolving process in which a point moves in a space (for us, typically $\mathbb{H}^2$) over time, in a consistent direction and at a consistent speed except that it is…
In this paper we report, clarify and broaden various recent efforts to complement the chemistry-centered models of force generation in muscles by mechanics-centered models. The physical mechanisms of interest can be grouped into two…
We study the rheology and distribution of interparticle contact lifetimes for gravity-driven, dense granular flows of non-cohesive particles down an inclined plane using large-scale, three dimensional, granular dynamics simulations. Rather…
Grip, walk, crawl, and jump. Soft robots are integrated functional structures composed of compliant mechanisms, whose activity spans various industrial applications such as surgery, healthcare, surveillance, and even planetary exploration.…
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…