Paper published
Maria’s paper on the artistic patterns of the cell wall of diatoms formed by phase separation is published in PNAS.
For a long time, people have been fascinated by the patterns formed in diatoms, which are microalgae with a beautiful cell wall made of patterned glass. We describe a family of unusual patterns of holes across a number of related diatom species. While we are not aware of other natural occurrences of these patterns, they are very similar to the pattern of stitches in a crocheted hat. Find out more about the patterns in diatoms and how crocheting is related to it with the link below!
Geometrical frustration of phase-separated domains in Coscinodiscus diatom frustules, Maria Feofilova, Silvan Schüepp, Roman Schmid, Florian Hacker, Hendrik T. Spanke, Nicolas Bain, Katharine E. Jensen, and Eric R. Dufresne, PNAS Vol. 119, No. 31, external pagedoi.org/10.1073/pnas.220101411