Related papers: Phase separation and critical size in molecular so…
Phase separation of sequence-disordered liquid crystalline polymers, a promising class of technological and biological relevance, is studied by field theory, and thermodynamic mechanisms responsible for orientational ordering observed in…
Non-equilibrium selection pressures were proposed for the formation of oligonucleotides with rich functionalities encoded in their sequences, such as catalysis. Since phase separation was shown to direct various chemical processes, we ask…
Phase separation is a fairly common physical phenomenon with examples including the formation of water droplets from humid air (fog, rain), the separation of a crystalline structure from an isotropic material such as a liquid or even the…
Cell differentiation in multicellular organisms is a complex process whose mechanism can be understood by a reductionist approach, in which the individual processes that control the generation of different cell types are identified.…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has emerged as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization, with evidence for it being reported in numerous different systems. However, there is a growing concern regarding the lack of…
Recent advances in classical density functional theory are combined with stochastic process theory and rare event techniques to formulate a theoretical description of nucleation, including crystallization, that can predict nonclassical…
Phase separation of various materials has been studied for one and a half centuries. In the last two decades, phase separation of proteins and nucleic acids has received enormous attention, due its relevance to cellular functions. However,…
Key traits of unicellular species, like cell size, often follow scale-free or self-similar distributions, hinting at the possibility of an underlying critical process. However, linking such empirical scaling laws to the critical regime of…
We extend the phase field crystal model to accommodate exact atomic configurations and vacancies by requiring the order parameter to be non-negative. The resulting theory dictates the number of atoms and describes the motion of each of…
The size- and fluorescence-based sorting of micro- and nano-scale particles suspended in fluid presents a significant and important challenge for both sample analysis and for manufacturing of nanoparticle-based products. Here we demonstrate…
Molecular dynamics simulations use statistical mechanics at the atomistic scale to enable both the elucidation of fundamental mechanisms and the engineering of matter for desired tasks. The behavior of molecular systems at the microscale is…
The phenomenon of cell sorting/segregation, by which cells organise spatially into clusters of specific cell type or function, is essential for tissue morphogenesis. This self-organization process involves an interplay between mechanical,…
Living and engineered systems rely on the stable coexistence of two interspersed liquid phases. Yet surface tension drives their complete separation. Here we show that stable droplets of uniform and tuneable size can be produced through…
A molecular understanding of how protein function is related to protein structure will require an ability to understand large conformational changes between multiple states. Unfortunately these states are often separated by high free energy…
Phase separation driven by nonequilibrium fluctuations is a hallmark of both living and synthetic active matter. Unlike equilibrium systems, where ordered states arise from the minimization of free energy, active systems are fueled by a…
Fractionation is necessary for self-assembly in multicomponent mixtures. Here, reversible fractionation and crystallization are realized and studied in a two-dimensional binary colloids which is supersaturated by enhancing the attraction…
Recent methods have demonstrated that Large Language Models (LLMs) can solve reasoning tasks better when they are encouraged to solve subtasks of the main task first. In this paper we devise a similar strategy that breaks down reasoning…
Proteins and nucleic acids can spontaneously self-assemble into membraneless droplet-like compartments, both in vitro and in vivo. A key component of these droplets are multi-valent proteins that possess several adhesive domains with…
An important step in diagnostics is the isolation of specific cells and microorganisms of interest from blood. Since such bioparticles are often present at very low concentrations, throughput needs to be as high as possible. In addition, to…
A random recursive cell splitting scheme of the $2$-dimensional unit sphere is considered, which is the spherical analogue of the STIT tessellation process from Euclidean stochastic geometry. First-order moments are computed for a large…