Title of the talk: "Fascinating flows and emergent mechanics in simple marine animals"
Abstract: Animals are characterized by their movement, and their tissues are continuously subjected to dynamic force loading. Tissue mechanics determines the ecological niches that can be endured by a living organism. In the first part of my talk, I will present our surprising discovery of motility-induced tissue fractures and healing in a simple, early divergent marine animal - the Trichoplax adhaerens. I will demonstrate how fracture mechanics governs dramatic shape changes and asexual reproduction in this animal. In the second part of my talk, I will focus on the role of fluid mechanics in marine invertebrates. In starfish larvae, we discovered that ciliary arrays give rise to a beautiful pattern of slowly evolving vortices which determine a physical tradeoff between feeding and swimming.
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