Related papers: Force generation by a cylindrical cell under stati…
Mathematical models of biological growth commonly attempt to distinguish deformation due to growth from that due to mechanical stresses through a hypothesised multiplicative decomposition of the deformation gradient. Here we demonstrate…
We study the kinetics of domain growth of fluid mixtures quenched from a disordered to a lamellar phase. At low viscosities, in two dimensions, when hydrodynamic modes become important, dynamical scaling is verified in the form $C(\vec k,…
Sucrose is among the main products of photosynthesis that are deemed necessary for plant growth and survival. It is produced in the mesophyll cells of leaves and translocated to different parts of the plant through the phloem. Progress in…
We investigate the stability of growing vesicles using the formalism of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The vesicles are growing due to the accretion of lipids to the bilayer which forms the vesicle membrane. The thermodynamic description is…
Measurements of cell size dynamics have established the adder principle as a robust mechanism of cell size homeostasis. In this framework, cells add a nearly constant amount of size during each cell cycle, independent of their size at…
Mechanical force regulates the formation and growth of cell-cell junctions. Cadherin is a prominent homotypic cell adhesion molecule that plays a crucial role in establishment of intercellular adhesion. It is known that the transmitted…
Recent experiments have illuminated a remarkable growth mechanism of rod-shaped bacteria: proteins associated with cell wall extension move at constant velocity in circles oriented approximately along the cell circumference (Garner et al.,…
Unlike coffee and cream that homogenize when stirred, growing micro-organisms (e.g., bacteria, baker's yeast) can actively kill each other and avoid mixing. How do such antagonistic interactions impact the growth and survival of competing…
A potential theory is presented for the problem of two moving cylinders, with possibly different radii, large motions, immersed in an perfect stagnant fluid. We show that the fluid force is the superposition of an added mass term, related…
How fast must an oriented collection of extensile swimmers swim to escape the instability of viscous active suspensions? We show that the answer lies in the dimensionless combination $R=\rho v_0^2/2\sigma_a$, where $\rho$ is the suspension…
We investigate the cooperative dynamics of an ensemble of N microtubules growing against an elastic barrier. Microtubules undergo so-called catastrophes, which are abrupt stochastic transitions from a growing to a shrinking state, and…
Contraction of the cytokinetic ring during cell division leads to physical partitioning of a eukaryotic cell into two daughter cells. This involves flows of actin filaments and myosin motors in the growing membrane interface at the…
Actin growth is a fundamental biophysical process and it is, at the same time, a prototypical example of diffusion-mediated surface growth. We formulate a coupled chemo-mechanical, one-dimensional growth model encompassing both material…
Recent work has found that the well-known `lift-up' mechanism is not important for, and may even inhibit, the transient growth possible on streaky wall-bounded shear flows which is believed an important process in the near-wall cycle for…
Thermal gradients lead to macroscopic fluid motion if a confining surface is present along the gradient. This fundamental nonequilibrium effect, known as thermo-osmosis, is held responsible for particle thermophoresis in colloidal…
Membrane tubes (spicules) arise in cells, or artificial membranes, in the nonlinear deformation regime due to, e.g. the growth of microtubules, actin filaments or sickle hemoglobin fibers towards a membrane. We calculate the axial force…
Cells and other soft particles are often forced to flow in confined geometries in both laboratory and natural environments, where the elastic deformation induces an additional drag and pressure drop across the particle. In contrast with…
The role of turbulence in current generation and self-excitation of magnetic fields has been studied in the geometry of a mechanically driven, spherical dynamo experiment, using a three dimensional numerical computation. A simple impeller…
This work investigates efficient routes to turbulence in quasi-two-dimensional shear flows. Two-dimensional disturbances require high Reynolds numbers to incite transition from a steady base flow, as transient growth is modest. With the…
Using linearized elasticity as a convenient mechanical framework, we show that volumetric growth can be formulated as an optimization-driven process in which the growth tensor is determined implicitly by constrained optimization rather than…