Related papers: Charting dissipation across the microbial world

Collections of self-propelled particles that move persistently by continuously consuming free energy are a paradigmatic example of active matter. In these systems, unlike Brownian "hot colloids", the breakdown of detailed balance yields a…

Organic material in anoxic sediment represents a globally significant carbon reservoir that acts to stabilize Earth's atmospheric composition. The dynamics by which microbes organize to consume this material remain poorly understood. Here…

We show that the observed non-monotonic behavior of the thermal conductance between two nanoparticles when they are brought into contact is originated by an intricate phase space dynamics. Here it is assumed that this dynamics results from…

Researchers have found that the metabolisms of organisms appear to scale proportionally to a 3/4 power of their mass. Mathematics in this article suggests that the capacity of an isotropically radiating energy supply scales up by a 4/3…

The prevalence of multicellular organisms is due in part to their ability to form complex structures. How cells pack in these structures is a fundamental biophysical issue, underlying their functional properties. However, much remains…

Intercellular exchange networks are essential for the adaptive capabilities of populations of cells. While diffusional exchanges have traditionally been difficult to map, recent advances in nanotechnology enable precise probing of exchange…

Cell cultures exhibit rich and complex behaviors driven by dynamic metabolic interactions among cells. In this work, we present a model that captures these interactions through a framework inspired by statistical mechanics. Using Monte…

We investigate the nonequilibrium thermodynamics of pure decoherence. In a pure decoherence process, the system Hamiltonian is a constant of motion and there is no direct energy exchange between the system and its surroundings.…

Dormancy is an essential strategy for microorganisms to cope with environmental stress. However, global ecosystem models typically ignore microbial dormancy, resulting in major model uncertainties. To facilitate the consideration of…

The energy transition is also about switching to electricity-based technologies such as heat pumps and electric mobility. They avoid heat as an intermediate step and are therefore much more efficient. This can significantly reduce the…

We investigate experimentally the entropy transfer between two distinguishable atomic quantum gases at ultralow temperatures. Exploiting a species-selective trapping potential, we are able to control the entropy of one target gas in…

The separation of substances into different phases is ubiquitous in nature and important scientifically and technologically. This phenomenon may become drastically different if the species involved, whether molecules or supramolecular…

There is ongoing interest in the global entropy production rate as a climate diagnostic and predictor, but progress has been limited by ambiguities in its definition; different conceptual boundaries of the climate system give rise to…

Within a mathematical model, the process of interaction of the metabolic processes such as glycolysis and gluconeogenesis is studied. As a result of the running of two opposite processes in a cell, the conditions for their interaction and…

Living organisms are inherently out-of-equilibrium systems. We employ new developments in stochastic energetics and rely on a minimal microscopic model to predict the amount of mechanical energy dissipated by such dynamics. Our model…

Microbiomes, which are collections of interacting microbes in an environment, often substantially impact the environmental patches or living hosts that they occupy. In microbiome models, it is important to consider both the local dynamics…

The hotness of the sun and the coldness of the outer space are inexhaustible thermodynamic resources for human beings. From a thermodynamic point of view, any energy conversion systems that receive energy from the sun and/or dissipate…

Anisotropy in temperature, chemical potential, or ion concentration, provides the fuel that feeds dynamical processes that sustain life. At the same time, anisotropy is a root cause of incurred losses manifested as entropy production. In…

A complete mathematical theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of stochastic systems in terms of master equations is presented. As generalizations of isothermal entropy and free energy, two functions of states play central roles: the Gibbs…

The metabolism is the motor behind the biological complexity of an organism. One problem of characterizing its large-scale structure is that it is hard to know what to compare it to. All chemical reaction systems are shaped by the same…