  Carbon nanotubes and biological filaments each spontaneously assemble into
kinked helices, rings, and "tennis racket" shapes due to competition between
elastic and interfacial effects. We show that the slender geometry is a more
important determinant of the morphology than any molecular details. Our
mesoscopic continuum theory is capable of quantifying observations of these
structures, and is suggestive of their occurrence in other filamentous
assemblies as well.
