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Figure 10 from the paper cited below:
Morphogenesis of spheroidal-like natural and biological systems
FROM:
Xi Chen and Jie Yin, “Buckling patterns of thin films on curved compliant substrates with applications to morphogenesis and three-dimensional micro-fabrication” (Review article, part of the collection: “The Physics of Buckling”), Soft Matter, 2010, Vol. 6, pp. 5667-5680,
From Columbia Engineering, Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Bulletin, November 21, 2008:
“Associate Professor Xi Chen of the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and his research group have taken fruits and vegetables off the table and put them in the laboratory. Using engineering mechanics principles, Chen’s group has provided the first explanation of why some fruits and vegetables are characterized by distinctive skin patterns, such as cantaloupes, pumpkins, peppers, gourds, melons, among others. ‘Many spheroidally-shaped fruits and vegetables are characterized by their distinct ridges, ribs or mottled patterns,’ says Chen. ‘For instance, the Korean melon, ridged gourd, small pumpkin, and acorn squash have 10 equidistant longitudinal ridges which run from stem to tip; a large pumpkin has about 20 ridges. Striped cavern tomatoes and bell peppers have four to six ribs that characterize their unique appearances while cantaloupes show a reticular morphology that mixes ridged and latitude patterns.’ He notes that Charles Darwin remarked that an explanation of such patterns could ‘drive the sanest man mad’. But Chen’s group has come up with an explanation using the buckling principles of engineering mechanics. ‘The distinct appearances of some natural fruits and vegetables are governed by simple mechanical principles. Because of mismatched deformation between the shell (skin) and core (flesh), the excessive growth of the shell could induce buckling and serve as a template for subsequent growth,’ he says. Chen believes that this research is also highly relevant to a number of systems in animals and cellular biology, despite the many biological and biochemical factors that also are involved. ‘Our work implies that what might be thought of as merely a work of nature is, in fact, a result of simple mechanical principles.’ The work of Chen’s group is reported in the article 'Why fruit are groovy’ in the Nov. 18 Nature News. The story is based on a research paper entitled ‘Stress-driven buckling patterns in spheroidal core/shell structures’, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of November 17 [2008]. Chen is the corresponding author of the paper and his doctoral student Jie Yin is the first author.”
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