Related papers: Light-induced cortical excitability reveals progra…
How pattern and form are generated in a reproducible manner during embryogenesis remains poorly understood. Intestinal organoid morphogenesis involves a number of mechanochemical regulators, including cell-type specific cytoskeletal forces…
Embryonic tissues deform across broad spatial and temporal scales and relax stress through active rearrangements. A quantitative link between cell-scale activity, spatial forcing, and emergent tissue-scale mechanics remains incomplete.…
We propose a unified mechanism that reproduces the sequence of dynamical transitions observed during somitogenesis, the process of body segmentation during embryonic development, that is invariant across all vertebrate species. This is…
Structured optical waveforms are emerging as powerful control fields for the next generation of complex photonic and electromagnetic systems, where the temporal structure of light can determine the ultimate performance of scientific…
We investigate experimentally the early stage of the generation of waves by a turbulent wind at the surface of a viscous liquid. The spatio-temporal structure of the surface deformation is analyzed by the optical method Free Surface…
Liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) containing light-sensitive molecules exhibit large reversible deformation when subjected to illumination. Here, we investigate the role of optical penetration depth on this photomechanical response. We…
In embryonic development, programmed cell shape changes are essential for building functional organs, but in many cases the mechanisms that precisely regulate these changes remain unknown. We propose that fluid-like drag forces generated by…
Across development, the morphology of fluid-filled lumina enclosed by epithelial tissues arises from an interplay of lumen pressure, mechanics of the cell cortex, and cell-cell adhesion. Here, we explore the mechanical basis for the control…
Many embryonic deformations during development are the global result of local cell shape changes and other local active cell sheet deformations. Morphogenesis does not only therefore rely on the ability of the tissue to produce these active…
One of the characteristic features of many marine dinoflagellates is their bioluminescence, which lights up nighttime breaking waves or seawater sliced by a ship's prow. While the internal biochemistry of light production by these…
Living organisms have mastered the dynamic control of internal stresses to perform an array of functions, such as change shape and locomote. State-of-the-art attempts to replicate this ability in synthetic materials are rudimentary in…
During the early-stages of embryo development, morphogenesis--- the emergence of shape and form in living organisms--- is almost exclusively associated with monolayers of tightly bound epithelial cells. To understand how such tissues change…
Cells modify their volume in response to changes in osmotic pressure but it is usually assumed that other active shape variations do not involve significant volume fluctuations. Here we report experiments demonstrating that water transport…
The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…
Dynamic wetting plays an important role in the physics of multiphase flow, and has significant influence on many industrial and geotechnical applications. In this work, a modified smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) model is employed to…
The cell cortex is a thin layer beneath the plasma membrane that gives animal cells mechanical resistance and drives most of their shape changes, from migration, division to multicellular morphogenesis. It is mainly composed of actin…
Biological tissues have been observed to display emergent fluid-like properties, owing to physical interactions between cells. However, it remains unclear in general how these fluid-like properties affect tissue structure and function.…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is important across biology, physics, and materials science. Although usually studied at equilibrium, active components - such as motor proteins, enzymes, and synthetic microswimmers - are increasingly…
The inverse mechano-electrical problem in cardiac electrophysiology is the attempt to reconstruct electrical excitation or action potential wave patterns from the heart's mechanical deformation that occurs in response to electrical…
The hydrodynamic theory of active nematics has been often used to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics of cell flows and motile topological defects within soft confluent tissues. Those theories, however, often rely on the assumption that…