What about?

Darwin’s “The power of movements in plants” described how a root tip being ‘annoyed’ by the card attached to it and subsequently got rid of it by its motion. The question is how a root tip interacts with its environment – SOIL.

Normal soil might be too challenging for reproducible experiments, thus we plant in “artifical” soil (i.e. plastic or glass spheres with controllable size distribution and initial packing). By means of X-ray tomography and 3D volume data analysis, we trace the positions of ALL spheres plus the morphology of the root so as to explore how local packing density influences the collective behavior.

The challenge is that: The force distribution inside granular materials is very heterogenous, as indicated by the above picture.  How do root tips figure out their way through?

What for?

In collaboration with plant biologists, we try to establish the capability of “designing” plants that can better protect soil from erosion.

In collaboration with ecologist, we try to provide “microscopic” models for large scale simulations on the response of plants to climate change.

What to learn?

In general, it is an opportunity to learn advanced image analysis teachinques (see, e.g. the picture above) and active jamming.

For data and computer science and applied math students: Learn computer vision, large data analysis and modeling.

For biophysics or medical physics students: Learn how to conduct X-ray tomography for biological samples, its working principle and potential applications.

For materials science students: Learn materials science characterization tools, density control of granular materials.

How to apply?

Email to the PI with subject “CDL – SRS2023 Applicant: YOUR NAME – CLASS“. There are two openings for the project valid through April.15 or until the positions are filled.