Hair, or hair-like fibrillar structures, are ubiquitous in biology, from fur on the bodies of mammals, over trichomes of plants, to the mastigonemes on the flagella of single-celled organisms. While these long and slender protuberances are passive, they are multifunctional and help to mediate interactions with the environment. They provide thermal insulation, sensory information, reversible adhesion, and surface modulation (e.g., […]
Category: Research
New Paper! The effect of external flow on 3D orientation of Vorticella convallaria
In this paper, we examined how external flow influenced the feeding behavior and biomechanics of the unicellular Vorticella convallaria, a model organism for sessile suspension feeders. It was an invited paper at the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Check it out here.
Finite element analysis of suction cups (and suction failure too).
I’m still writing this up, but I wanted to share a short video of our recent work modeling suction cups using FEBio, an open-source finite element modeling tool. Check out this biomimetic cuttlefish suction cup: