Related papers: On the stability and growth of single myelin figur…
Myelin figures are interfacial structures formed when certain surfactants swell in excess water. Here, I present data and model calculations suggesting myelin formation and growth is due to the fluid flow of surfactant, driven by the…
Myelin figures (MFs) -- cylindrical lyotropic liquid crystalline structures consisting of concentric arrays of bilayers and aqueous media -- arise from the hydration of the bulk lamellar phase of many common amphiphiles. Prior efforts have…
Myelin figures are densely packed stacks of coaxial cylindrical bilayers that are unstable to the formation of coils or double helices. These myelin figures appear to have no intrinsic chirality. We show that such cylindrical membrane…
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…
We report experimental observations of an undulational instability of myelin figures. Motivated by this, we examine theoretically the deformation and possible instability of concentric, cylindrical, multi-lamellar membrane structures. Under…
A theory is presented for the behavior of an array of multi-lamellar vesicles (the onion phase) upon addition of solvent. A unique feature of this system is the possibility to sustain pressure gradients by tension in the lamellae. Tension…
The patterns arising from the differential swelling of gels are investigated experimentally and theoretically as a model for the differential growth of living tissues. Two geometries are considered: a thin strip of soft gel clamped to a…
Monolayers of growing bacteria, confined within channel geometries, exhibit self-organization into a highly aligned laminar state along the axis of the channel. Although this phenomenon has been observed in experiments and simulations under…
Understanding how growth induces form is a longstanding biological question. Many studies concentrated on the shapes of plant cells, fungi or bacteria. Some others have shown the importance of the mechanical properties of bacterial walls…
Icicles form when cool water drips from an overhanging support under ambient conditions which are below freezing. Ice growth is controlled by the removal of latent heat, which is transferred into the surrounding air via a thin film of water…
Obstructions influence the growth and expansion of bodies in a wide range of settings -- but isolating and understanding their impact can be difficult in complex environments. Here, we study obstructed growth/expansion in a model system…
Heterogeneous growth plays an important role in the shape and pattern formation of thin elastic structures ranging from the petals of blooming lilies to the cell walls of growing bacteria. Here we address the stability and regulation of…
Biofilms are bacterial aggregates that grow on moist surfaces. Thin homogeneous biofilms naturally formed on the walls of conducts may serve as biosensors, providing information on the status of microsystems (MEMS) without disrupting them.…
Under hard-agar and nutrient-rich conditions, a cell of $Bacillus$ $subtilis$ grows as a single filament owing to the failure of cell separation after each growth and division cycle. The self-elongating filament of cells shows sequential…
A new model is proposed to explain coiling of myelins composed of fluid bilayers. This model allows the constituent bilayer cylinders of a myelin to be non-coaxial and the bilayer lateral tension to vary from bilayer to bilayer. The…
Thin elastic solids are easily deformed into a myriad of three-dimensional shapes, which may contain sharp localized structures as in a crumpled candy wrapper, or have smooth and diffuse features like the undulating edge of a flower.…
Fluids with spatial density variations of single or mixed molecules play a key role in biophysics, soft matter and materials science. The fluid structures usually form via spinodal decomposition or nucleation following an instantaneous…
After rainfall, pine needles often float on the surface of small puddles. As the water evaporates, they self-assemble into distinct clusters. Motivated by this natural phenomenon, we experimentally investigate the dynamic evolution of…
A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…
Many tissues take the form of thin sheets, being only a single cell thick, but millions of cells wide. These tissue sheets can bend and buckle in the third dimension. In this work, we investigated the growth and shrinkage of suspended and…