Soft Matter Blog

Rheology in eye wetting: Wetting phenomena in the tear film, the coating of the eye, was modelled with four insoluble surfactants, including meibum, a primary component of the lipid layer of the tear film, on a water droplet. The work suggests that surface rheology has a strong influence on the wetting phenomena. Danielle L. Leiske, Cécile Monteux, Michelle Senchyna, Howard A. Ketelson and Gerald G. Fuller, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05231D

External control of self-assembled nanoparticle size: Cyclodextrin was used as an external trigger to direct the size of self-assembled nanoparticles. The host molecule was added to polyadimoamine dendrimer and diazo dye nanoparticles to cause stepwise size increase of the particles. This allowed dynamic size control without the need for synthesis of specific building blocks, or direct inclusion of the cyclodextrin. Immanuel Willerich, Torben Schindler, Helmut Ritter and Franziska Gröhn, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05405H

Amyloid protein pitch: New experimental and theoretical evidence demonstrates that periodic twisting pitch in protein amyloid fibrils arises from the competing electrostatic and torsional elastic energies stored along the fibrils contour length. Amyloid fibrils are highly important in processes such as Alheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Jozef Adamcik and Raffaele Mezzenga , Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05382E

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SuperOLEOphobicity of lotus leaves: The superhydrophobicity of lotus leaves is well known, however, the lotus leaf also exhibits superoleophobicty on its lower side. Researchers have fabricated Janus interface materials with superhydrophobicity on one side in air and superleophobicity on the other side in water.  Qunfeng Cheng, Mingzhu Li, Yongmei Zheng, Bin Su, Shutao Wang and Lei Jiang, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05452J

Hydrogel scaffolds for embryonic cell differentiation: Embryonic cell (EC) differentiation can be strongly influenced by the scaffolds used to support the initial embryoid bodies’ growth. Here, molecular hydrogels are used for the first time to control EC differentiation, and could specifically enhance the expression of a mesoderm marker, Flk1.  Hongjie Liu, Yuehan Hu, Huaimin Wang, Jingyu Wang, Deling Kong, Ling Wang, Lingyi Chen and Zhimou Yang, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05198A

Towards synthesis of 2-D arrays of magnetic nanoparticles: The effect of magnetic nanoparticles on the surface stability of surfactant films, which is very important for a number of technical applications, has been investigated. Maghemite nanoparticles were added to SDS, CTAB and Brij 35 films, and the interactions studied using surface dilation and shear rheological experiments.

Patrick Degen, D. C. Florian Wieland, Sabine Leick, Michael Paulus, Heinz Rehage and Metin Tolan, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05248A.

 Bioelectrode materials have huge potential for use in neural prosthetic devices, such as the cochlear implant. Researchers have developed a gellan gum doped polypyrrole (conducting polymer) coating which enhanced the electrochemical properties of neural prosthetic electrodes. Gellan gum is a biologically derived polysaccharaide which has applications in tissue engineering and drug delivery.

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Thomas M. Higgins, Simon E. Moulton, Kerry J. Gilmore, Gordon G. Wallace and Marc in het Panhuis,

Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05063J, Paper

Micromachining processes have been developed for observing durotaxis (mechanotaxis) – the directional movement of cells.  Bovine aeortic endothelial cells were seeded on a micropost array, fabricated by a highly reproducible method. The cells exhibited higher displacement and speed in the direction of increasing micropost stiffness.

Read the whole article for free here, until May6…. Ryan D. Sochol, Adrienne T. Higa, Randall R. R. Janairo, Song Li and Liwei Lin, Soft Matter, 2011, (Advance Article), DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05163F, Communication

A new theory of ferronematics to describe the optical response of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in nematic liquid crystals has been developed. The ferroparticle nanosuspension in the liquid crystal matrix exhibited much higher sensitivity to magnetic fields than the undoped liquid crystal, highlighting the potential for the use of these materials in magnetically driven devices.

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Nina Podoliak, Oleksandr Buchnev, Oleksandr Buluy, Giampaolo D’Alessandro, Malgosia Kaczmarek, Yuriy Reznikov and Timothy J. Sluckin, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05051F, Paper

Researchers use Monte Carlo simulation techniques to determine the thermodynamically optimal structure for spherical colloids with different diameters. The question being, what stable lattice structures arise from packing of polydisperse particles? The authors take into account fractionation, the phenomenon where particle diameters can vary from one coexisting phase to another, for their simulations.

Read the article for free here until May 4: Peter Sollich and Nigel B Wilding
Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C0SM01367F, Paper

The unique properties of hydrogels, such as self-healing and tuneable solubility, have been exploited to fabricate 2D non-closed packed arrays with exceptional long range order. The poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microspheres used can tolerate inclusions without the introduction of dislocations unlike hard sphere colloids.

This method is a convenient alternative to the Langmuir-Blodgett technique for fabricating ordered arrays of densely packed 2D spheres. The colloidal lithography demonstrated here could be used to pattern surfaces for application in optics and sensing.

Read the article for free here until May 4: Stefan B. Quint and Claudia Pacholski, Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/C1SM05058C, Communication

A simple model inspired by amoeboid motion caused by the sol-gel transition of actin has been designed. The model describes blebbing (formation of irregular bulges) by the quantitative analysis of interfacial deformations in an oil-water system. It successfully reproduced experiments that described the relationship between size of the bleb and size of the oil droplet placed on an aqueous surface.

Read for free here until April 22: Yutaka Sumino, Hiroyuki Kitahata, Hideki Seto and Kenichi Yoshikawa, Soft Matter, 2011, (Advance Article), DOI: 10.1039/C0SM00906G, Paper

Dr Brangwynne writes on the growing interest in intracellular protein bodies and their non-equilibrium, “active” behaviour in living cells. These bodies are non-membrane-bound organelles, such as Cajal bodies, the nucleolus and centrosomes which localise specific macromolecules (for example, RNA and protein). Their functions can include ribosome biogenesis, RNA splicing and cell division.

Read more for free here until April 22: Clifford P. Brangwynne, Soft Matter, 2011, (Advance Article), DOI: 10.1039/C0SM00981D, Emerging Area