Bistability, and more generally multistability, is a key system dynamics feature enabling decision-making and memory in cells. Deciphering the molecular determinants of multistability is thus crucial for a better understanding of cellular pathways and their (re)engineering in synthetic biology. Here, we show that a key motif found predominantly in eukaryotic signalling systems, namely a futile ...

Leech heart interneurons (HNs) control the heartbeat of the medicinal leech. They are organized in mutually inhibitory pairs, half-center oscillators (HCOs). Biophysically accurate models of HCO and HN exhibit bistability of bursting and silence. A pulse of current can switch the HN between coexisting regimes. Characteristics of a pulse switching a neuron from silence to bursting has been previ...

We demonstrate electric bistability induced by the positive feedback of self-heating onto the thermally activated conductivity in a two-terminal device based on the organic semiconductor C(60). The central undoped layer with a thickness of 300 nm is embedded between thinner n-doped layers adjacent to the contacts, minimizing injection barriers. The observed current-voltage characteristics follo...

Microring and microdisk lasers are potential candidates for small footprint, low threshold in-plane integrated lasers; however, they exhibit multimode lasing spectra and bistability. Here, we theoretically propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel approach for achieving single mode lasing in microring lasers. Our approach is based on increasing the radiation loss of all but one of the reso...

In order to understand the electrochemical behavior of a living cell at a low extracellular potassium concentration, a model is constructed. The model involves only the ATP driven sodium-potassium pump, and the sodium and potassium channels. Predictions of the model fit the N-shape of the current-voltage characteristic at low extracellular potassium. The model can, furthermore, quantitatively a...