meta-Cybotaxis and nematic biaxiality

In 1970, two seemingly unrelated reports about nematic liquid crystals appeared in the scientific literature: at Kent State University, Adrian de Vries reported local smectic order in a nematic that he termed cybotactic, and at IBM, Marvin Freiser showed the possibility of a lower symmetry nematic that he named biaxial. These two discoveries are connected through consideration of the origins of spontaneous symmetry breaking, in particular, how broken symmetry within transient clusters permeating a nominally uniaxial nematic may lead to a biaxial nematic.