Rebuilding growth mechanisms through visual observations. M. Raimo, E. Lotti. Chemtexts (2016) 2: 11.

This article conveys useful key factors to rebuilt the solidification of polycrystalline materials, as well as the growth history of organisms and their parts, and to establish the metrics of the growth. The microscopic analysis of solids is founded on the classical nucleation theory and on interconnections between the heat flow pathway and geometry of grains and interfaces. Particular order of the grains, such as alignment, indicates non-isotropic heat transport during solidification, for instance, due to the presence of extraneous filamentous material or to heat exchange by convection along definite directions. Morphological analysis is also shown to be valuable to detect particular thermal effects caused by changes of environmental factors during growth. Relatively to solids, the growth pattern of living bodies is complicated by mass transfer between cells and environment. However, several similarities with non-living matters can be often found.