Luminescent stress-detecting polymer

This video shows a polystyrene particle propelled along a microfiber by light, first in the fundamental mode, then in a higher order mode. It is easy to see how much faster the particle zips along in the higher order mode.  

This video shows a soapy mixture passing through the posts in the microfluidic platform and emerging on the right as a gel.

Researchers from the Biological Physics Theory Unit and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam conducted local linear analyses to reduce the complex posture movements of the nematode worm C. elegans to simpler components -- analogous to breaking spoken language into phonemes. The top video displays a snippet of posture behavior of C. elegans which is automatically decomposed into reversal, coiling and forward movements (bottom).

The scientists used a CCD camera to directly visualize the changes in brightness as the polymer was stretched and released. The false color red represents high light intensity and the false color blue represents low light intensity.

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