Related papers: Ants as Fluids: Physics-Inspired Biology
Collective locomotion of swimming and flying animals is fascinating in terms of individual-level fluid mechanics and group-level structure and dynamics. Here we bridge and relate these scales through a model of formation flight that views…
Over the past few decades, the research community has been interested in the study of multi-agent systems and their emerging collective dynamics. These systems are all around us in nature, like bacterial colonies, fish schools, bird flocks,…
We propose and numerically analyze a PDE model of ant foraging behavior. Ant foraging is a prime example of individuals following simple behavioral rules based on local information producing complex, organized and ``intelligent'' strategies…
We report that liquids perform self-propelled motion when they are placed in contact with hot surfaces with asymmetric (ratchet-like) topology. The pumping effect is observed when the liquid is in the film-boiling regime, for many liquids…
Many microfluidics devices, coating processes or diphasic flows involve the motion of a liquid meniscus on a wet wall. This motion induces a specific viscous force, that exhibits a non-linear dependency in the meniscus velocity. We propose…
Many species of ants forage by building up two files: an outbound one moving from the nest to the foraging area, and a nestbound one, returning from it to the nest. Those files are eventually submitted to different threats. If the danger is…
The ants process is a stochastic process introduced by Kious, Mailler and Schapira as a model for the phenomenon of ants finding shortest paths between their nest and a source of food (seen as two marked nodes in a finite graph), with no…
Collective modes in two-dimensional electron fluids show an interesting response to a background carrier flow. Surface plasmons propagating on top of a flowing Fermi liquid acquire a non-reciprocal character manifest in a $\pm k$ asymmetry…
Through Monte Carlo simulations and the Associating Lattice Gas Model, the phases of a two-dimensional fluid under hydrophilic confinement are evaluated. The model, in its unconfined version, reproduces the anomalous behavior of water…
Drops deposited on rough and hydrophobic surfaces can stay suspended with gas pockets underneath the liquid, then showing very low hydrodynamic resistance. When this superhydrophobic state breaks down, the subsequent wetting process can…
While many organisms filter feed and exchange heat or nutrients in flow, few benthic organisms also actively pulse to enhance feeding and exchange. One example is the pulsing soft coral (Heteroxenia fuscescens). Pulsing corals live in…
Different evolutionary models are known to make disparate predictions for the success of an invading mutant in some situations. For example, some evolutionary mechanics lead to amplification of selection in structured populations, while…
Synchronization, the temporal coordination of coupled oscillators, allows fireflies to flash in unison, neurons to fire collectively and human crowds to fall in step on the London Millenium bridge. Here, we interpret active (or…
The millimeter-long soil-dwelling nematode {\it C. elegans} propels itself by producing undulations that propagate along its body and turns by assuming highly curved shapes. According to our recent study [PLoS ONE \textbf{7}, e40121 (2012)]…
Active fluids operate by constantly dissipating energy at the particle level to perform a directed motion, yielding dynamics and phases without any equilibrium equivalent. The emerging behaviors have been studied extensively, yet…
Controlling fluidic flows in active droplets is crucial in developing intelligent models to understand and mimic single-celled microorganisms. Typically, these fluidic flows are affected by the interfacial dynamics of chemical agents. We…
We consider the problem of extracting accurate average ant trajectories from many (possibly inaccurate) input trajectories contributed by citizen scientists. Although there are many generic software tools for motion tracking and specific…
A thring is a recent addition to the zoo of spiral wave phenomena found in excitable media and consists of a scroll ring that is threaded by a pair of counter-rotating scroll waves. This arrangement behaves like a particle that swims…
Flocking is ubiquitous in nature and emerges due to short- or long-range alignment interactions among self-propelled agents. Two unfriendly species that antialign or even interact nonreciprocally show more complex collective phenomena,…
Branched actin networks exert pushing forces in eukaryotic cells, and adapt their stiffness to their environment. The physical basis for their mechanics and adaptability is however not understood. Indeed, here we show that their high…