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How does a living thing know what shape to grow into?

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The Logic of Living Patterns

Answer in brief

Living tissues can make repeatable form because cells respond to nearby signals, move materials, and change the physical conditions their neighbours encounter. Reaction–diffusion, interpreted gradients, directed transport, mechanics, and geometry are complementary ways this local coordination can become a body-scale pattern.

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Sources that address it

  1. Auxin transport model for leaf venationpreprint
  2. Hydromechanical field theory of plant morphogenesispreprint
  3. Mathematical Modelling of Auxin Transport in Plant Tissues: Flux meets Signalling and Growthpreprint
  4. Modeling the emergence of polarity patterns for the intercellular transport of auxin in plantspreprint
  5. Morphogen gradients are regulated by porous media characteristics of the developing tissueweb
  6. Reaction-Diffusion Pattern in Shoot Apical Meristem of Plantsweb
  7. Synthetic genetic circuits as a means of reprogramming plant rootsweb
  8. Turing-like mechanism in a stochastic reaction-diffusion model recreates three dimensional vascular patterning of plant stemsweb

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