Related papers: Kinks, rings, and rackets in filamentous structure…
Intermediate filaments are the least explored among the large cytoskeletal elements. We show here that they display conformational anomalies in narrow microfluidic channels. Their unusual behavior can be understood as the consequence of a…
Protein structures in nature often exhibit a high degree of regularity (secondary structures, tertiary symmetries, etc.) absent in random compact conformations. We demonstrate in a simple lattice model of protein folding that structural…
The native state structures of globular proteins are stable and well-packed indicating that self-interactions are favored over protein-solvent interactions under folding conditions. We use this as a guiding principle to derive the geometry…
In this fluid dynamics video we explore an array of different possible dynamics for a flexible filament sedimenting in a viscous fluid. The time-dependent shapes and trajectories of the filament are determined analytically and numerically…
We provide a minimal continuum model for mesoscale plasticity, explaining the cellular dislocation structures observed in deformed crystals. Our dislocation density tensor evolves from random, smooth initial conditions to form self-similar…
The effects of entanglement in solutions and melts of unknotted ring polymers have been addressed by several theoretical and numerical studies. The system properties have been typically profiled as a function of ring contour length at fixed…
The packing problem of long thin filaments that are injected into confined spaces is of fundamental interest for physicists and biologists alike. How linear threads pack and coil is well known only for the ideal case of rigid containers,…
In this study we give a geometrical model which employs the smoothness of nerve fibers as differentiable curves. We show that a nerve fiber may encounter large curvature due to the possible helicial bending and hence it could cause the…
Observations have shown that the Sun's magnetic field has helical structures. The helicity content in magnetic field configurations is a crucial constraint on the dynamical evolution of the system. Since helicity is connected with the…
Here, we provide an overview of theoretical approaches to semiflexible polymers and their networks. Such semiflexible polymers have large bending rigidities that can compete with the entropic tendency of a chain to crumple up into a random…
Filamentary structure is important for the ISM and star formation. Galactic distribution of filaments may regulate the star formation rate in the Milky Way. However, interstellar filaments are intrinsically complex, making it difficult to…
Magnetic materials and nanostructures based on carbon offer unique opportunities for future technological applications such as spintronics. This article reviews graphene-derived systems in which magnetic correlations emerge as a result of…
The nature of its intrinsic ripples is the key factor for understanding the stability of suspended graphene, and for unraveling the long-standing theoretical debate of the existence of low-dimensional crystalline state. The rippling…
We study structural properties of a ring polymeric melt confined in a film in comparison to a linear counterpart using molecular dynamics simulations. Local structure orderings of ring and linear polymers in the vicinity of the surface are…
We study a simple two-dimensional model for motion of an elastic filament subject to internally generated stresses and show that wave-like propagating shapes which can propel the filament can be induced by a self-organized mechanism via a…
Many organisms exhibit branching morphologies that twist around each other and become entangled. Entanglement occurs when different objects interlock, creating complex and often irreversible configurations. This physical phenomenon is…
Molecular chirality frustrates the two-dimensional assembly of filamentous molecules, a fact that reflects the generic impossibility of imposing a global twisting of layered materials. We explore the consequences of this frustration for…
If carbon fibre layers are prevented from slipping over one another as they consolidate onto a non-trivial geometry, they can be particularly susceptible to wrinkling/buckling instabilities. A one dimensional model for wrinkling during…
Cilia are motile biological appendages that are driven to bend by internal shear stresses between tubulin filaments. A continuum model of ciliary material is constructed that incorporates the essential ciliary constraints: (1)…
Deformations that conserve the parallelism and the distances --between layers, in smectic phases; between columns, in columnar phases-- are commonplace in liquid crystals. The resulting deformed textures have the same mass density as in the…