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Single flagellated bacteria are ubiquitous in nature. They exhibit various swimming modes using their flagella to explore complex surroundings such as soil and porous polymer networks. Some single-flagellated bacteria swim with two distinct…
The self-organised motion of vast numbers of creatures in a single direction is a spectacular example of emergent order. We recreate this phenomenon using actuated non-living components. We report here that millimetre-sized tapered rods,…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
From bacteria and sperm cells to artificial microrobots, self-propelled microscopic objects at low Reynolds numbers often perceive fluctuating mechanical and chemical stimuli and contact exterior wall boundaries both in nature and the…
In isotropic fluids like water, micrometer-scale swimmers have evolved swim strokes to translate despite their tiny size. As described by Purcell in his Scallop Theorem, reciprocal motions, like those performed by a scallop, cannot drive…
Motility is a fundamental feature of living matter, encompassing single cells and collective behavior. Such living systems are characterized by non-conservativity of energy and a large diversity of spatio-temporal patterns. Thus,…
In the gonad of C. elegans worms, germ cells form the outer lining of the central tube, the rachis, which carries a cytoplasmic flow.
A striking feature of the collective behavior of spherical microswimmers is that for sufficiently strong self-propulsion they phase-separate into a dense cluster coexisting with a low-density dis- ordered surrounding. Extending our previous…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
A propagating "beam" triggering a local phase transition in a nematic elastomer sets it into a crawling motion, which may morph due to buckling. We consider the motion of the various configurations of slender rods and thin stripes with both…
Locomotion emerges from effective interactions of an individual with its environment. Principles of biological terrestrial locomotion have been discovered on unconfined vertical and horizontal substrates. However a diversity of organisms…
The random energy landscapes developed by speckle fields can be used to confine and manipulate a large number of micro-particles with a single laser beam. By means of molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate the static and dynamic…
Swimming micro-organisms such as flagellated bacteria and sperm cells have fascinating locomotion capabilities. Inspired by their natural motion, there is an ongoing effort to develop artificial robotic nano-swimmers for potential in-body…
Recently, there is much interest in droplet condensation on soft or liquid/liquid-like substrates. Droplets can deform soft and liquid interfaces resulting in a wealth of phenomena not observed on hard, solid surfaces (e.g., increased…
It has been shown that an anisotropic liquid crystalline (LC) environment can be used to guide the self-propulsion dynamics of dispersed microswimmers, such as bacteria. This type of composite system is named "living nematic" (LN). In the…
We study the transport of bacteria in a porous media modeled by a square channel containing one cylindrical obstacle via molecular dynamics simulations coupled to a lattice Boltzmann fluid. Our bacteria model is a rod-shaped rigid body…
Many eukaryotic cells undergo frequent shape changes (described as amoeboid motion) that enable them to move forward. We investigate the effect of confinement on a minimal model of amoeboid swimmer. Complex pictures emerge: (i) The…
A large variety of microorganisms produce molecules to communicate via complex signaling mechanisms such as quorum sensing and chemotaxis. The biological diversity is enormous, but synthetic inanimate colloidal microswimmers mimic…
The growing interest in the non-equilibrium assembly of colloidal particles in active liquids is driven by the motivation to create novel structures endowed with tunable properties unattainable within the confines of equilibrium systems.…
We study the spatial distribution of gyrotactic microorganisms transported by a three-dimensional turbulent flow generated by direct numerical simulations. We find that gyrotaxis combines with turbulent fluctuations to produce small scales…