Today we want to congratulate researcher Camino De Juan Romero because one of her latest works is featured on the cover of Current Biology.<\/p>\n
On the cover: In this issue, Dagenais et al. demonstrate that the characteristic polygonal pattern of grooves on the noses of dogs, ferrets, and cows develops in the embryo via the mechanical coupling between epidermal folding and stiff blood vessels. Homogeneous growth of the epidermis makes it buckle into sharp creases exactly facing an underlying network of blood vessels because the latter form rigid base points\u2014akin to stiff pillars supporting rising arches. These results suggest a new concept of \u201cmechanical positional information\u201d by which material properties of anatomical elements impose local constraints on an otherwise globally self-organized mechanical process. The resulting skin grooves retain physiological fluid, thereby keeping the nose wet and, among other effects, facilitating the collection of chemosensory molecules.<\/p>\n
We would like to congratule the whole team: Paule Dagenais, Ebrahim Jahanbakhsh, Aur\u00e9lien Capitan, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Jammes, Karine Reynaud, Camino De Juan Romero, Victor Borrell and Michel.C. Milinkovitch<\/p>\n