Abstract
Rarely do intra-cellular flows amount to much: cells are small, and so are their Reynolds numbers. The extraordinarily large cells of the Characean algae provide a fascinating counter-example, as their geometry precludes the standard methods of distributing food and waste. van de Meent et al. (J. Fluid Mech., 2010, this issue, vol. 642, pp. 5–14) present nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) velocimetry measurements of the fluid flow within individual living cells, which agree quantitatively with their fluid mechanical model and confirm a long-standing hypothesis. In addition to biomimetic parallels with microfluidic labs on chips, this work showcases NMR velocimetry as an under-appreciated but immensely powerful technique. The non-invasive tracer-free high-resolution flow measurements it enables – even in opaque and heterogeneous fluids – should find wide application.
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