Minimal two-sphere model of the generation of fluid flow at low Reynolds numbers

Locomotion and generation of flow at low Reynolds number are subject to severe limitations due to the irrelevance of inertia: the "scallop theorem" requires that the system have at least two degrees of freedom, which move in non-reciprocal fashion, i.e. breaking time-reversal symmetry. We show here that a minimal model consisting of just two spheres driven by harmonic potentials is capable of generating flow. In this pump system the two degrees of freedom are the mean and relative positions of the two spheres. We have performed and compared analytical predictions, numerical simulation and experiments, showing that a time-reversible drive is sufficient to induce flow.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, revised version, corrected typo

Vegetation requirements of the black grouse habitat (Tetrao Tetrix L.) in Pohorje MTS.

Ruševec se na Pohorju (severno-vzhodna Slovenija) pojavlja na grebenskih legahv zahodnem delu pogorja. V rastitvenih sezonah 2000 in 2001 smo napravilipopis aktivnosti sub-populacij na šestih znanih rastiščih in tako izločili ploskve potencialnega habitata. Na njih smo raziskovali odločilne vegetacijske strukture. V primerjavo sta vključeni tudi dve opuščeni rastišči.Vse popisne ploskve (400x400m) so bile razdeljene na 256 osnovnih ploskvic. Ugotavljamo, da so štiri aktivna rastišča. med seboj relativno homogena, od njih pa se jasno ločita obe opuščeni rastišči. Razlike med srednjimi vrednostmi ocenjevanih značilnosti vegetacijskih tipov (pokrovnost borovnice, brusnice, jesenske vrese, zeliščne plasti, delež travišč in traviščv zaraščanju, grmovne plasti, sklep krošenj smreke in jerebike v drevesni plasti ter mravljišč) so statistično značilne. Trend upadanja abundance ocenjevanih značilnosti habitata je opazen od zahoda do opuščenih rastišč na vzhodu, od zaledja stabilne alpske populacije proti robu ob subpanonskem fitogeografskem območju. Pokrovnost borovnice na aktivnih rastiščih je 19%, na opuščenih 5%, pokrovnost zeliščne plasti ocenjevanih vrstje 38%, na opuščenih 11%, število mravljišč je 13,7/ha, na opuščenih rastiščih 8/ha. Primerjava med vegetacijskimi tipi je pokazala, da so najprimernejši habitati na mestih, kjer se prepletajo barjanski ekosistemi (12%), travišča (15%), zaraščajoča travišča (41 %), gozd (31 %) in vodne površine (1 %), vendar ob pogoju, da območje ni v nadaljnjem zaraščanju in ni preveč obljudeno.The Black Grouse inhabits mountain ridges in the western part of the Pohorje Mts (1543 m a.s.l., NE Slovenia). In the mating periods (2000, 2001), we carried out a survey of six known pairing areas and thus separated plots of potential habitat. In comparison, two abandoned display grounds were also incorporated. The base sampling areas (400 x 400 m) were divided into 256 square planes. It was discovered that the four active display grounds were relatively homogenous, while the two abandoned grounds clearly differed from them. The differences of the observed vegetation type characteristics (cover of blueberry, cranberry, autumn heather, herb layer, share of pastures including those now being overgrown, the abundance of bush layer, crown density of Norway spruce, mountain ash and anthills) are statistically significant. This declining tendency was noticeable from the display grounds in the west to the abandoned display grounds in the east, from the hinterland of a stable Alpine population towards the edge of the sub-Pannonian phytogeographic region. Cover value of blueberry on active display grounds is 19%, abandoned display grounds 5 %, herb layer 38% (11%), the number of anthills is 13.7/ha (8/ha). A comparison between vegetation types and richness of herbal and shrub layer has shown that the most suitable habitats for the Black Grouse are places with interchanging swampland ecosystems (12%),pastures (15%), partially overgrown pastures (41%), forest (31%) and water areas (1%), although on preliminary condition that the area is not beingfurther overgrown and overpopulated, by human

Using Old Laboratory Equipment with Modern Web-of-Things Standards: a Smart Laboratory with LabThings Retro

There has been an increasing, and welcome, Open Hardware trend towards science teams building and sharing their designs for new instruments. These devices, often built upon low-cost microprocessors and micro-controllers, can be readily connected to enable complex, automated, and smart experiments. When designed to use open communication web standards, devices from different laboratories and manufacturers can be controlled using a single protocol, and even communicate with each other. However, science labs still have a majority of old, perfectly functional, equipment which tends to use older, and sometimes proprietary, standards for communications. In order to encourage the continued and integrated use of this equipment in modern automated experiments, we develop and demonstrate LabThings Retro. This allows us to retrofit old instruments to use modern web-of-things standards, which we demonstrate with closed-loop feedback involving an optical microscope, digital imaging and fluid pumping.Comment: Supplementary material - video demonstration available at https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.1012373

Long-range interactions, wobbles, and phase defects in chains of model cilia

Eukaryotic cilia and flagella are chemo-mechanical oscillators capable of generating long-range coordinated motions known as metachronal waves. Pair synchronization is a fundamental requirement for these collective dynamics, but it is generally not sufficient for collective phase-locking, chiefly due to the effect of long-range interactions. Here we explore experimentally and numerically a minimal model for a ciliated surface: hydrodynamically coupled oscillators rotating above a no-slip plane. Increasing their distance from the wall profoundly affects the global dynamics, due to variations in hydrodynamic interaction range. The array undergoes a transition from a traveling wave to either a steady chevron pattern or one punctuated by periodic phase defects. Within the transition between these regimes the system displays behavior reminiscent of chimera states

Entrainment of mammalian motile cilia in the brain with hydrodynamic forces.

Motile cilia are widespread across the animal and plant kingdoms, displaying complex collective dynamics central to their physiology. Their coordination mechanism is not generally understood, with previous work mainly focusing on algae and protists. We study here the entrainment of cilia beat in multiciliated cells from brain ventricles. The response to controlled oscillatory external flows shows that flows at a similar frequency to the actively beating cilia can entrain cilia oscillations. We find that the hydrodynamic forces required for this entrainment strongly depend on the number of cilia per cell. Cells with few cilia (up to five) can be entrained at flows comparable to cilia-driven flows, in contrast with what was recently observed in Chlamydomonas Experimental trends are quantitatively described by a model that accounts for hydrodynamic screening of packed cilia and the chemomechanical energy efficiency of the flagellar beat. Simulations of a minimal model of cilia interacting hydrodynamically show the same trends observed in cilia

Interactions between colloids induced by a soft cross-linked polymer substrate

Using video-microscopy imaging we demonstrate the existence of a short-ranged equilibrium attraction between heavy silica colloids diffusing on soft surfaces of cross-linked polymer gels. The inter-colloid potential can be tuned by changing the gel stiffness or by coating the colloids with a polymer layer. On sufficiently soft substrates, the interaction induced by the polymer matrix leads to large-scale colloidal aggregation. We correlate the in-plane interaction with a colloid-surface attraction