Related papers: Sharp, localized phase transitions in single neuro…
Native membranes of biological cells display melting transitions of their lipids at a temperature of 10-20 degrees below body temperature. Such transitions can be observed in various bacterial cells, in nerves, in cancer cells, but also in…
The thermodynamic (TD) properties of biological membranes play a central role for living systems. It has been suggested, for instance, that nonlinear pulses such as action potentials (APs) can only exist if the membrane state is in vicinity…
Over the past years, there have been many efforts towards generating interactions between two optical beams so strong that they could be observed at the level of individual photons. Such strong interactions, beyond opening up a new regime…
Physics perfectly describes neuronal operation, provided that we take into account that biology uses slow, positively charged ions rather than electrons as charge carriers and remove untested ad hoc hypotheses that contradict science's…
Phase transitions are the macroscopic manifestation of microscopic processes that drive a system towards a new state. The detailed evolution of these processes, particularly in abrupt phase transitions, are currently not fully understood.…
Realizing a strong interaction between individual optical photons is an important objective of research in quantum science and technology. Since photons do not interact directly, this goal requires, e.g., an optical medium in which the…
Cellular behavior is governed by gene regulatory processes that are intrinsically dynamic and nonlinear, and are subject to non-negligible amounts of random fluctuations. Such conditions are ubiquitous in physical systems, where they have…
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…
Optical fibers have been enabling numerous distinguished applications involving the operation and generation of light, such as soliton transmission, light amplification, all-optical switching and supercontinuum generation. The active…
The shape of a cell influences and it is influenced by interactions with its neighbouring partners. Here, we introduce a coarse-grained model of non-reciprocal interactions between single-cell organisms to study emergent morphologies during…
We present experimental and theoretical arguments, at the single neuron level, suggesting that neuronal response fluctuations reflect a process that positions the neuron near a transition point that separates excitable and unexcitable…
It has been suggested that second-order nonlinearities could be used for quantum logic at the single-photon level. Specifically, successive two-photon processes in principle could accomplish the phase shift (conditioned on the presence of…
Mechanical signaling plays a key role in biological processes like embryo development and cancer growth. One prominent way to probe mechanical properties of tissues is to study their response to externally applied forces. Using a…
We investigate the collective dynamics of nonlinearly interacting modes in multimode photonic settings with long-range couplings. To this end, we have established a connection with the theory of spin networks. The emerging "photonic spins"…
Most animal body plans have some degree of left-right asymmetry. This chirality at the tissue and organ level is often assumed to originate from the intrinsic handedness of biological molecules. How this handedness might be transferred from…
Cell mechanical properties are fundamental to the organism but remain poorly understood. We report a comprehensive phenomenological framework for the nonlinear rheology of single fibroblast cells: a superposition of elastic stiffening and…
In multicellular organisms, epithelial cells form layers separating compartments responsible for different physiological functions. At the early stage of epithelial layer formation, each cell of an aggregate defines an inner and an outer…
The interplay between band topology and material nonlinearity gives rise to a variety of novel phenomena, such as topological solitons and nonlinearity-induced topological phase transitions. However, most previous studies fall within the…
When it is polarised, a cell develops an asymmetric distribution of specific molecular markers, cytoskeleton and cell membrane shape. Polarisation can occur spontaneously or be triggered by external signals, like gradients of signalling…
A neuron transforms its input into output spikes, and this transformation is the basic unit of computation in the nervous system. The spiking response of the neuron to a complex, time-varying input can be predicted from the detailed…