Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37672580›Full record

ArticleScience advances2023

Topological packing statistics of living and nonliving matter.

Dominic J Skinner, Hannah Jeckel, Adam C Martin, Knut Drescher, Jörn Dunkel

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Optimal disk packing of chloroplasts in plant cells.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Dominic J SkinnerDepartment of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-2698-041X
Hannah JeckelDepartment of Physics, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Renthof 6, 35032 Marburg, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-7080-4907
Adam C MartinDepartment of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-8060-2607
Knut DrescherBiozentrum, University of Basel, Spitalstrasse 41, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.ORCID 0000-0002-7340-2444
Jörn DunkelDepartment of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.ORCID 0000-0001-8865-2369

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Complex disordered matter is of central importance to a wide range of disciplines, from bacterial colonies and embryonic tissues in biology to foams and granular media in materials science to stellar configurations in astrophysics. Because of the vast differences in composition and scale, comparing structural features across such disparate systems remains challenging. Here, by using the statistical properties of Delaunay tessellations, we introduce a mathematical framework for measuring topological distances between general three-dimensional point clouds. The resulting system-agnostic metric reveals subtle structural differences between bacterial biofilms as well as between zebrafish brain regions, and it recovers temporal ordering of embryonic development. We apply the metric to construct a universal topological atlas encompassing bacterial biofilms, snowflake yeast, plant shoots, zebrafish brain matter, organoids, and embryonic tissues as well as foams, colloidal packings, glassy materials, and stellar configurations. Living systems localize within a bounded island-like region of the atlas, reflecting that biological growth mechanisms result in characteristic topological properties.

Indexed as

BandagesZebrafishAnimalsBiofilmsBrainEmbryonic DevelopmentFemaleSaccharomyces cerevisiae

Identifiers

PMID37672580
PMCPMC10482333

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.