Soft Condensed Matter commonly deals with materials that are mechanically soft and, more importantly, particularly prone to thermal fluctuation effects. Charged soft matter systems are especially interesting: they can be manufactured artificially as polyelectrolytes to serve as superabsorbers in dypers, as flocculation and retention agents, as thickeners and gelling agents, and as oil-recovery process aids. They are also abundant in living organisms, mostly performing important structural (e.g. membranes) and functional (e.g. DNA) tasks. The book describes the many areas in soft matter and biophysics where electrostatic interactions play an important role. It offers in-depth coverage of recent theoretical approaches, advances in computer simulation, and novel experimental techniques. Readership: Advanced undergraduate level in physics, physical chemistry, and theoretical biochemistry.

This 2-volume set includes extensive discussions of scattering techniques (light, neutron and X-ray) and related fluctuation and grating techniques that are at the forefront of this field. Most of the scattering techniques are Fourier space techniques. Recent advances have seen the development of powerful direct imaging methods such as atomic force microscopy and scanning probe microscopy. In addition, techniques that can be used to manipulate soft matter on the nanometer scale are also in rapid development. These include the scanning probe microscopy technique mentioned above as well as optical and magnetic tweezers.

Soft matter is a concept which covers polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, amphiphilic molecules, glasses, granular and biological materials. One of the fundamental characteristic features of soft matter is that it exhibits various mesoscopic structures originating from a large number of internal degrees of freedom of each molecule. Due to such intermediate structures, soft matter can easily be brought into non-equilibrium states and cause non-linear responses by imposing external fields such as an electric field, a mechanical stress or a shear flow. Volume 4 of the series in Soft Condensed Matter focuses on the non-linear and non-equilibrium properties of soft matter. It contains a collection of review articles on the current topics of non-equilibrium soft matter physics written by leading experts in the field. The topics dealt with in this volume includes rheology of polymers and liquid crystals, dynamical properties of Langmuir monolayers at the air/water interface, hydrodynamics of membranes and twisted filaments as well as dynamics of deformable self-propelled particles and migration of biological cells. This book serves both as an introduction to students as well as a useful reference to researchers.

This handbook provides a unique overview of lipid membrane fundamentals and applications. The fascinating world of lipids that harbor and govern so many biological functionalities are discussed within the context of membrane structures, interactions, and shape evolution. Beyond the fundamentals in lipid science, this handbook focuses on how scientists are building bioinspired biomimetic systems for applications in medicine, cosmetics, and nanotechnology. Key Features: Includes experimental and theoretical overviews on the role of lipids, with or without associated biomolecules, as structural components imparting distinct membrane shapes and intermembrane interactions Covers the mechanisms of lipid-membrane curvature, by peptide and protein binding, and the roles of signalling lipids and the cytoskeleton in plasma membrane shape evolution Covers advanced X-ray and force measurement techniques Discusses applications in biomedicine, cosmetics, and nanotechnology, including lipid vectors in nucleic acid, drug delivery in dermal applications, and lipid-based sensors and artificial biointerfaces Covers artificial membranes from block copolymers, synthetic copolypeptides, and recombinant proteins Includes an exciting section that explores the role of lipids in the origin of life in hydrothermal conditions This book is a highly informative companion for professionals in biophysics, biochemistry, physical chemistry, and material and pharmaceutical sciences and bioengineering.

. Despite their capacity to carry out functions that previously were unobtainable, smart polymers and hydrogels tend to have painfully slow response times. On the other hand biological systems go through phase changes at an extremely fast rate. Reflexive Polymers and Hydrogels examines the natural systems that respond almost instantaneously to envi

Recently, there has been a surge of activity to elucidate the behavior of highly charged soft matter and Coulomb fluids in general. Such systems are ubiquitous, especially in biological matter where the length scale and the strength of the interaction between highly charged biomolecules are governed by strong electrostatic effects. Several interest

This book provides new clues for understanding electrostatic charging in solids and liquids, resulting from the surge of research in this active area of science that is taking place since the 1990's but is still largely unknown to most researchers, lecturers and engineers. Written by a leading researcher in this field, this book describes the formation and properties of the Earth capacitor, the production of environmental electricity and its effect on natural and anthropic systems and examines many situations in which water may play a decisive role in electrostatic behavior. The authors present an informed critique of the long-held assumption that pure substances should be electroneutral. In this regard, the authors show that charge partition and accumulation is expected considering the electrochemical potential under non-zero electrostatic potential, which prevails at Earth surface. This book provides conceptual tools to guide the reader through the complexities and consequences of electrostatic phenomena while covering exciting current topics such as energy scavenging from the environment, electrostatic based green production, energy-saving processes, electrochemistry at the solid-gas interface, therapeutic electrostatic treatments, applications in sanitation and pest control and control of atmospheric electricity and its use in climate engineering.

Driven in part by the development of genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics as new disciplines, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in physical methods to investigate macromolecular structure and function in the context of living cells. This volume in Methods in Cell Biology is devoted to biophysical techniques in vitro and their applications to cellular biology. Biophysical Tools for Biologists covers methods-oriented chapters on fundamental as well as cutting-edge techniques in molecular and cellular biophysics. This book is directed toward the broad audience of cell biologists, biophysicists, pharmacologists, and molecular biologists who employ classical and modern biophysical technologies or wish to expand their expertise to include such approaches. It will also interest the biomedical and biotechnology communities for biophysical characterization of drug formulations prior to FDA approval. - Describes techniques in the context of important biological problems - Delineates critical steps and potential pitfalls for each method - Includes full-color plates to illustrate techniques

​This book presents a collection of selected lectures discussing current problems in molecular physics and reviews the main cutting-edge advances in condensed and soft matter physics. It offers deep insights and a powerful basis for scientists and engineers to study complicated problems in physics, chemistry, biology, and medicine. The unification of experimental, theoretical, and computational methods allows milestone results to be achieved in areas such as ionic and ionic-electronic liquids, magnetic liquid systems, liquid systems with nanoparticles, structural phase transitions and critical phenomena, and small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering in liquids and liquid systems. The lectures selected for this book were held at the 7th International Conference “Physics of Liquid Matter: Modern Problems” (PLMMP-2016), 27–31 May in Kiev, Ukraine.

A broad overview of the interaction of DNA with surfactants and polymers Due to the potential benefits of biotechnology, interest in the interaction between DNA and surfactants and polymers has become increasingly significant. Now, DNA Interactions with Polymers and Surfactants provides an extensive, up-to-date overview of the subject, giving readers a basis for understanding the factors leading to complexation between DNA and different cosolutes, including metal ions, polyelectrolytes, spermine, spermidine, surfactants and lipids, and proteins. Topical coverage includes: Polyelectrolytes, physico-chemical aspects and biological significance Solution behavior of nucleic acids Single DNA molecules: compaction and decompaction Interaction of DNA with surfactants and cationic polymers Interactions of histones with DNA DNA-DNA interactions The hydration of DNA-amphiphile complexes DNA-surfactant/lipid complexes at liquid interfaces DNA and DNA-surfactant complexes at solid surfaces The role of correlation forces for DNA-cosolute interactions Simulations of polyions Cross-linked DNA gels and gel particles DNA as an amphiphilic polymer Lipid-DNA interactions Covering both theoretical and practical aspects of the subject, DNA Interactions with Polymers and Surfactants is an ideal resource for chemists and biochemists working in gene and DNA delivery research in industry and academia, as well as for cell biologists, chemical engineers, molecular biologists, and development biologists in the pharmaceutical industry.