Nature's forms are frilly, flexible, and functional.

A ubiquitous motif in nature is the self-similar hierarchical buckling of a thin lamina near its margins. This is seen in leaves, flowers, fungi, corals, and marine invertebrates. We investigate this morphology from the perspective of non-Euclidean plate theory.

Noise-induced tipping under periodic forcing: Preferred tipping phase in a non-adiabatic forcing regime.

We consider a periodically forced 1D Langevin equation that possesses two stable periodic solutions in the absence of noise. We ask the question: is there a most likely noise-induced transition path between these periodic solutions that allows us to identify a preferred phase of the forcing when tipping occurs? The quasistatic regime, where the forcing period is long compared to the adiabatic relaxation time, has been well studied; our work instead explores the case when these time scales are comparable. We compute optimal paths using the path integral method incorporating the Onsager-Machlup functional and validate results with Monte Carlo simulations.

A retinal code for motion along the gravitational and body axes.

Self-motion triggers complementary visual and vestibular reflexes supporting image-stabilization and balance. Translation through space produces one global pattern of retinal image motion (optic flow), rotation another. We examined the direction preferences of direction-sensitive ganglion cells (DSGCs) in flattened mouse retinas in vitro.