Smart membranes:: A physical model for a circadian behavior -: art. no. 144103

Synthetic smart membranes, able to adjust their pore sizes, from 1 to 50 mu m, depending on the physical and/or chemical environment, are presented. Their oscillatory behavior, resembling that of many living systems, is accurately reproduced by a model based on the two competing phenomena in the membrane: elastic forces and steric interactions. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.