Congratulations to Sharad Pasale for winning a Soft Matter poster prize at the recent 3rd International Congress on Biohydrogels.
Sharad Pasale’s winning poster was titled:
Synthesis of biodegradable and thermoresponsive hydrogel via RAFT polymerization and click chemistry for tissue engineering.
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The latest issue of Soft Matter is now online. You can read the full issue here:
The outside front cover features an article on Reversible emulsification controlled by ionic surfactants and responsive nanoparticles by Jos Zwanikken, Katerina Ioannidou, Daniela Kraft and René van Roij.
Bespoke periodic topography in hard polymer films by infrared radiation-assisted evaporative lithography is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Argyrios Georgiadis, Alexander F. Routh, Martin W. Murray and Joseph L. Keddie.
Issue 23 contains the following Highlight and Review articles:
Fancy submitting an article to Soft Matter? Then why not submit to us today!
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The story in New Scientist (Pulse of light creates instant origami) has a short video which nicely shows the polymer sheet folding into 3 dimensional structures.
The paper by Michael Dickey, Jan Genzer and co-workers was also covered by Chemistry World (Shrinky Dink origami powered by heat).
… And finally here’s the original research paper
Self-folding of polymer sheets using local light absorption
Y Liu, J K Boyles, J Genzer and M Dickey
Soft Matter, 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1sm06564e
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US scientists have devised a method of generating 3D structures from flat surfaces by printing patterns onto a polymeric children’s toy and letting an IR heat lamp do the rest.
Polymers that are responsive to an applied stimulus have attracted interest in a variety of areas, and polymers that self-fold have potential applications in packaging, mechanical actuation, sensors and drug delivery.
Shape memory polymers, which return to a pre-programmed form upon a threshold temperature or other stimulus, suffer from limited movement and require complex syntheses, as the parts of the polymer that respond to the synthesis must be chemically different to the panels that move. This new technique, however, uses conventional black printer ink to print a hinge onto a cheap and readily available pre-stressed polystyrene polymer. Interested to know more? Read the full article in Chemistry World here…
(i) A Shrinky Dink; (ii) unidirectional folding via absorption of light by black ink patterned on one side of the Shrinky Dink; (iii) bidirectional folding due to ink on both sides of the Shrinky Dink. Owing to effective light absorption by the ink, the polymer under the black ink heats up faster than the rest of the polymer
Self-folding of polymer sheets using local light absorption
Y Liu, J K Boyles, J Genzer and M Dickey
Soft Matter, 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1sm06564e
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Soft Matter is publishing a themed issue on Polyelectrolytes in Soft Matter and Biology next year. The Guest Editors of the issue are Professor Michael Rubinstein (University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA) and Professor Garegin Papoian (University of Maryland, USA).
Many important synthetic and biological macromolecules, such as DNA, are polyelectrolytes. Both intra- and intermolecular electrostatic interactions, mediated by mobile ions and water, play crucial role in these systems, influencing the molecule’s structure, physical properties and function. Given the importance and ubiquity of polyelectrolytes both in synthetic and biological systems, a growing number of experimental and theoretical investigations address various aspects of their physical properties. Since research on polyelectrolytes is interdisciplinary, at the interface of polymer and biological physics, a themed issue on this topic will bring into a single venue works of researchers from many fields of science, providing a snapshot of the current state-of-the-art in the field. An example of unifying open problems in polymer physics is complexation of oppositely charged polyelectrolytes encountered in macromolecular self-assembly into micelles mediated by electrostatic forces, DNA and RNA packing in viral capsids, as well as is in DNA compaction into chromatin fiber.
The deadline for the receipt of manuscripts for this themed issue is 15 March 2012.
Interested in submitting an article? Contact the Editorial Office today by e-mailing softmatter-rsc@rsc.org.
Insects use hairy or smooth adhesive pads to stick to almost all known surfaces. Although studied for more than 300 years, the principles of insect adhesion are still not fully understood. This ‘Hot Highlight article’ summarizes recent advances in the understanding of fluid-based insect adhesion and highlights the large number of unresolved questions, regarding the mechanism of fluid secretion, the thickness of the mediating fluid layer, and the influence of surface properties on insect adhesive forces.
Fluid-based adhesion in insects – principles and challenges
Jan-Henning Dirks and Walter Federle
Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1SM06269G
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Gold nanoparticles (NPs) grafted with promesogenic ligands show temperature induced liquid crystalline polymorphism with unique phase sequence: from smectic to columnar structure. Most studied liquid crystals made of NPs show only simple mesomorphism but authors in this Hot Article have shown that NPs can also give complex, temperature tuneable structures.
Temperature-controlled liquid crystalline polymorphism of gold nanoparticles
Michal M. Wojcik, Monika Gora, Jozef Mieczkowski, Jerzy Romiszewski, Ewa Gorecka and Damian Pociecha
Soft Matter, 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C1SM06436C
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If someone asked you to draw the vein architecture of a leaf, your first thought might be to draw a tree-like structure; a central trunk with branches and twigs coming off it. While this picture may be correct for ancient and living fossils, it is not sufficient to describe the venation of most modern plants. For this loops are required. Eleni Katifori, Rockefeller University, is interested in why these loops have evolved and in understanding what purpose they serve.
On first sight, loops seem inefficient due to the redundancy inherent in a loopy structure. The veins in a leaf act as a transport system, delivering water and nutrients to the leaf. Assuming that the demand for nutrients is constant across the whole leaf, then yes a loopy structure is inefficient. However, this is not the case. Fluctuations occur across the leaf, not all stomata are open or closed at the same time. This leads to variation in water evaporation rates and photosynthetic activity. Loops allow the flow to be efficiently re-routed through the leaf in response to these fluctuations.
As well as improving efficiency, Katifori has found that ‘loopyness’ increases the resilience of the leaf to damage. Take a look at a nearby tree, almost every leaf on it will be damaged in some way or other. For a simple tree like network damage will halt flow. There is no way for veins on the other side of the injury to receive any nutrients or water. For a loopy network however, this is not the case. The nutrients can flow around the injury closing the loops and will eventually reach all parts of the leaf. Videos showing the two different cases can be found here.
Similar loopy architectures are seen in the veins of some insect wings, animal tissues such as the retina and the road networks of cities.
Katifori E., Szollosi G. J. and Magnasco M. O., Damage and fluctuations induce loops in optimal transport networks, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2010, 104, 048704.
Recent paper on leaves in Soft Matter:
Xiao, H., Chen, X., Modelling and simulation of curled dry leaves, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 10794-10802.
The latest issue of Soft Matter is now online. You can read the full issue here:
The outside front cover features an article on Self-assembly of non-linear polymers at the air/water interface: the effect of molecular architecture by Lei Zhao and Zhiqun Lin.
Topological defects of nematic liquid crystals confined in porous networks is the article highlighted on the inside front cover by Francesca Serra, Krishna C. Vishnubhatla, Marco Buscaglia, Roberto Cerbino, Roberto Osellame, Giulio Cerullo and Tommaso Bellini.
Issue 22 contains the following Highlight and Review articles:
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Congratulations to Ana West (Emory University) for winning a Soft Matter poster prize at International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials. The title of Ana’s winning poster was: ‘Effects of Defects on Stress Relaxation in Self-Assembled Protein Networks’.
Ryan Hensarling (The University of Southern Mississippi) won a Polymer Chemistry poster prize at International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials for his poster ‘Efficient Post-polymerization Surface Modification Utilizing Pendant Thiol Polymer Brushes’ and Jake Ray (The University of Southern Mississippi) won the Journal of Materials Chemistry poster prize.
From left to right: Jake Ray, Ana West and Ryan Hensarling.
The International Symposium on Stimuli-Responsive Materials was held 24th – 26th October 2011 at The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, USA.
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