Related papers: Three eras of micellization
Experiments on spherical particles in a 3D Couette cell vibrated from below and sheared from above show a hysteretic freezing/melting transition. Under sufficient vibration a crystallized state is observed, which can be melted by sufficient…
We present a generic mechanism by which reproducing microorganisms, with a diffusivity that depends on the local population density, can form stable patterns. It is known that a decrease of swimming speed with density can promote separation…
A recently introduced thermodynamic model of amphiphilic molecules in solution has yielded, under certain realistic conditions, a significant presence of metastable aggregates well below the critical micelle concentration -- a phenomenon…
We study the phase separation of binary lipid mixtures that form bicontinuous cubic phases. The competition between non-uniform Gaussian membrane curvature and line tension leads to a very rich phase diagram, where we observe symmetry…
Self-similar solutions of the equation that describes spreading of a liquid layer due to intermolecular forces are found. It is supposed that, when the thickness of the layer reaches some magnitude of the order of the molecular size, it…
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…
We investigate experimentally the collective behavior of a wet granular monolayer under vertical vibrations. The spherical particles are partially wet such that there are short-ranged attractive interactions between adjacent particles. As…
It has been proposed that during the early steps in the origin of life, small droplets could have formed via the segregation of molecules from complex mixtures by phase separation. These droplets could have provided chemical reaction…
We study the Becker-D\"oring bubblelator, a variant of the Becker-D\"oring coagulation-fragmentation system that models the growth of clusters by gain or loss of monomers. Motivated by models of gas evolution oscillators from physical…
We consider a system of spherical particles interacting by means of a pair potential equal to a finite constant for interparticle distances smaller than the sphere diameter and zero outside. The model may be a prototype for the interaction…
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…
How multicellular life forms evolved out from unicellular ones constitutes a major problem in our understanding of the evolution of our biosphere. A recent set of experiments involving yeast cell populations has shown that selection for…
We describe a new phenomenon in models of coalescence and fragmentation, that of gel-shatter cycles. These are dynamical, unforced, stochastic cycles in which slow, approximately deterministic coalescence up to and beyond gelation is…
Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease occurs due to plaque accumulation in the inner artery wall. In atherosclerotic plaque formation monocytes and macrophages play a significant role in controlling the disease dynamics. In the…
By evaporating a drop of lipid dispersion we generate the myelin morphology often seen in dissolving surfactant powders. We explain these puzzling nonequilibrium structures using a geometric argument: The bilayer repeat spacing increases…
A three-center phenomenological model able to explain, at least from a qualitative point of view, the difference in the observed yield of a particle-accompanied fission and that of binary fission was developed. It is derived from the liquid…
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…
The basic physics of nucleation in solid \hl{single-crystal} nanoparticles is revealed by a phase-field theory that includes surface energy, chemical reactions and coherency strain. In contrast to binary fluids, which form arbitrary contact…
The Fluid Mosaic Model by Singer & Nicolson proposes that biological membranes consist of a fluid lipid layer into which integral proteins are embedded. The lipid membrane acts as a two-dimensional liquid in which the proteins can diffuse…
Reaction-diffusion equations describe various spatially extended processes that unfold as traveling fronts moving at constant velocity. We introduce and solve analytically a model that, besides such fronts, supports solutions advancing as…