Related papers: Symmetry-Breaking in Plant Stems
We report a phenomenon of phase separation that relates in many aspects to Yves Couder's work: an inflatable architectured elastomer plate, expected to expand homogeneously in its plane, buckles instead widely out-of-plane into very complex…
The models introduced in this paper describe a uniform distribution of plant stems competing for sunlight. The shape of each stem, and the density of leaves, are designed in order to maximize the captured sunlight, subject to a cost for…
The nature of a phase transition is inherently connected to the changes in the crystalline symmtry, which is typically probed by elastic or inelastic scattering with neutrons, electrons or photons. When such a phase transition is stimulated…
Plants have developed different tropisms: in particular, they re-orient the growth of their branches towards light (phototropism) or upwards (gravitropism). How these tropisms affect the shape of a tree crown remains unanswered. We address…
The process of morphogenesis, which can be defined as an evolution of the form of an organism, is one of the most intriguing mysteries in the life sciences. It is clear, that gene expression patterns cannot explain the development of the…
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…
This article presents a physical biology approach to understanding organization and segregation of bacterial chromosomes. The author uses a "piston" analogy for bacterial chromosomes in a cell, which leads to a phase diagram for the…
Contrary to canonical expectations we show that lattice translational symmetry breaking often accompanies uniformly ordered flux phases. We demonstrate this phenomena by studying a spinless-fermion model on a square latttice with…
Consider the following stochastic model for immune response. Each pathogen gives birth to a new pathogen at rate $\lambda$. When a new pathogen is born, it has the same type as its parent with probability $1 - r$. With probability $r$, a…
The exponent of anomalous diffusion of virus in cytoplasm of a living cell is experimentally known to fluctuate depending on localized areas of the cytoplasm, indicating heterogeneity of diffusion. In a recent paper (Itto, 2012), a…
The plant hormone auxin is fundamental for plant growth, and its spatial distribution in plant tissues is critical for plant morphogenesis. We consider a leading model of the polar auxin flux, and study in full detail the stability of the…
This work reports an extensive study of three-dimensional topological ordered phases that, in one of the directions behave like usual topological order concerning mobility of excitations, but in the perpendicular plane manifest type-II…
What are the general principles that allow proper growth of a tissue or an organ? A growing leaf is an example of such a system: it increases its area by orders of magnitude, maintaining a proper (usually flat) shape. How can this be…
The primary objective of this article is to explore how rotation influences the initiation of phototactic bioconvection. This investigation is conducted through the application of linear stability theory to a suspension composed of…
Growth-fragmentation processes describe the evolution of systems of cells which grow continuously and fragment suddenly; they are used in models of cell division and protein polymerisation. Typically, we may expect that in the long run, the…
Populations of isogenic embryonic stem cells or clonal bacteria often exhibit extensive phenotypic heterogeneity which arises from stochastic intrinsic dynamics of cells. The internal state of the cell can be transmitted epigenetically in…
The effective conjugation symmetry that arises in the rotating wave frame is the analogue of the discrete symmetry in field theory. Breaking this effective conjugation symmetry leads to asymmetries between up- and down- chirped excitation…
We consider a simple model for the growth of isolated steps on a vicinal crystal surface. It incorporates diffusion and drift of adatoms on the terrace, and strong step and kink edge barriers. Using a combination of analytic methods and…
The spongy mesophyll is a complex, porous tissue found in plant leaves that enables carbon capture and provides mechanical stability. Unlike many other biological tissues, which remain confluent throughout development, the spongy mesophyll…
Directional growth caused by gravitropism and corresponding bending of plant cells has been explored since 19th century, however, many aspects of mechanisms underlying the perception of gravity at the molecular level are still not well…