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Sam Wormley wrote:
Stresses determine the shape of life (Sep 22)
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/10/9/14
Patterns are everywhere in nature, from the leopard's spots to the
nautilus's spiral shell, but scientists struggle to understand the
mechanisms that produce them. Researchers in the US now believe that
physics of microtubules is an important piece in the puzzle (Proc. Natl
Acad. Sci. 103 10654).
I have to read this more carefully, but at first blush, my question
would be "where's the biology"? the microtubules were polymerized in
very unphysical (for a cell) conditions. To be sure, some people think
that the cytoskeleton of a cell is involved in strain sensing
(especially in osteocytes), but the cytoskeleton is highly disordered.
A more interesting system to study would have been the actin/myosin
fibres in muscles. Muscles are nearly crystalline entities. Also, some
recent work has shown that epithelial cells divide along preferential
directions: that is tubules lengthen, not widen. Somehow the
microtubules align during cell division to allow this. Not from many-T
magnetic fields, tho.
--
Andrew Resnick, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Case Western Reserve University
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