research

Ex-vivo measure of stress-strain relationships in populations of living adherent cells by means of ligand-coated ferromagnetic microbeads (mean diameter: 4.5 µm) attached to the transmembrane mechanoreceptors which are linked to the cytoskeleton (CSK), reveal non linear cell mechanical behavior. However, this non linear cell mechanical behaviour is subjected to controversy for various reasons. First, it has not been systematically found. Results seem to depend on the micromanipulation method used and/or the cell type.

This is a very rough manuscript but including the original material we used. Any criticism or suggestion is welcome. The only aim of this letter is to reflect the multi-effect of surface energy on material or structure in nanosize scale. Here we report the effect of surface energy on the yield strength of nanoporous materials. The conventional micromechanics method is extended to consider the surface effect and expression of effective yield surface of nanoporous materials in complex stress state is derived.

By George A. Hazelrigg, National Science Foundation

I have been an NSF program director for 18 years. During this time, I have personally administered the review of some 3,000 proposals and been involved in the review of perhaps another 10,000. Through this experience, I have come to see that often there are real differences between winning proposals and losing proposals. The differences are clear. Largely, they are not subjective differences or differences of quality; to a large extent, losing proposals are just plain missing elements that are found in winning proposals. Although I have known this for some time, a recent experience reinforced it.

It is well known that metals are hardened by deformation and soften by annealing. How about nanostructured metals? Can we reply on conventional metal-working lore?

R. Huang, Applied Physics Letters 87, 151911 (2005).

In this study, bone cells were successfully cultured into a micropatterned network with dimensions close to that of in vivo osteocyte networks using microcontact printing and self-assembled monolyers (SAMs). The optimal geometric parameters for the formation of these networks were determined in terms of circle diameters and line widths. Bone cells patterned in these networks were also able to form gap junctions with each other, shown by immunofluorescent staining for the gap junction protein connexin 43, as well as the transfer of gap-junction permeable calcein-AM dye.

When a metal is grown onto a substrate of itself (homoepitaxy), the growth front is typically smooth, or at most is roughened by the formation of shallow hills (called surface mounds). The underlying reason for the roughening has been recognized to be of kinetic nature: Atoms landed on an upper terrace do not have enough time to overcome the "road blocks" provided by the steps and fill all the valleys (known as the Villian instability).

A new journal dedicated to the field of Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics has been formed for about a year. Many members in this community (such as Ning Wang, Cheng Zhu, Phil LeDuc) are on the board of editors. You may want to check it out....