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Review article on ‘The physics of tissue patterning and extracellular matrix organisation: how cells join forces’. The authors discuss how cells interact with other cells and with substrates to form complex tissues and organs. Important examples are the patterning of growth and differentiation within tissues and the long-range organisation of the extracellular matrix. P. Kollmannsberger, C. M. Bidan, J. W. C. Dunlop and P. Fratzl, Soft Matter, 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05588G
Self-organisation of dendrimers is extensively modeled through molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse grained dendron model to show how the thermodynamic conditions play a decisive role on its self-organization. A global phase diagram for dendrons which shows the relation between columnar and supramolecular sphere phases was also realised. Andrew J. Crane and Erich A. Müller, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 7465-7476, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05599B
An electrorheological (ER) effect in a single phase ER suspension in microgravity is reported for the first time. Potential applications of single-phase ER fluids may be found in outer-space stations with micro-gravity environment, serving as a tunable friction-generating material. Guoqing Zhao, Shuyu Chen, Weijia Wen, Fumiaki Miyamaru, Mitsuo W. Takeda, Jianding Yu and Ping Sheng, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 7198-7200, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05736G
