Related papers: C. elegans in Complex Media
Physical properties of composite materials can be pre-engineered by controlling their structure and composition at the mesoscale. Yet, approaches for achieving this are limited and rarely scalable. We introduce a new breed of self-assembled…
We present a mathematical model of lophotrichous bacteria, motivated by Pseudomonas putida, which swim through fluid by rotating a cluster of multiple flagella extended from near one pole of the cell body. Although the flagella rotate…
Processive molecular motors which drive the traffic of organelles in cells move in a directed way along cytoskeletal filaments. On large time scales, they perform motor walks, i.e., peculiar random walks which arise from the repeated…
Predicting rapid and slower soil evolution remains a scientific challenge. This process involves poorly understood aspects of disordered granular matter and dense suspension dynamics. This study presents a novel two-dimensional experiment…
Diffusion of tracer particles in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells is often anomalous with a marked heterogeneity even within individual particle trajectories. Despite considerable efforts, the mechanisms behind these observations have…
Diversity and specialization of behavior in insects is unmatched. Insects hop, walk, run, jump, row, swim, glide and fly to propel themselves in a variety of environments. We have uncovered an unusual mode of propulsion of aerodynamic…
Using molecular dynamics simulations, we study the slow dynamics of supercooled liquids confined in a random matrix of immobile obstacles. We study the dynamical crossover from glass-like to Lorentz-gas-like behavior in terms of the density…
A large-scale molecular dynamics simulation is performed on a glass-forming Lennard-Jones mixture to determine the nature of dynamical heterogeneities which arise in this model fragile liquid. We observe that the most mobile particles…
Motile bacteria are known to accumulate at surfaces, eventually leading to changes in bacterial motility and bio-film formation. We use a novel two-colour, three-dimensional Lagrangian tracking technique, to follow simultaneously the body…
Complex networks can often be decomposed into less complex sub-networks whose structures can give hints about the functional organization of the network as a whole. However, these structural motifs can only tell one part of the functional…
A flagellated bacterium navigates fluid environments by rotating its helical flagellar bundle. The wobbling of the bacterial body significantly influences its swimming behavior. To quantify the three underlying motions--precession,…
While bacterial swimming has been well characterized in uniform liquid environments, only little is known about how bacteria propagate through complex environments, such as gel-like matrices or porous media that are typically encountered in…
The complex interactions underlying collective motion in biological systems give rise to emergent behaviours such as flocking, sorting, and cooperative transport. These dynamics often involve species with different motilities coordinating…
Transport properties of concentrated electrolytes have been analyzed using classical molecular dynamics simulations with the algorithms and parameters typical of simulations describing complex electrokinetic phenomena. The electrical…
Filamentous cyanobacteria can show fascinating examples of nonequilibrium self-organization, which however are not well-understood from a physical perspective. We investigate the motility and collective organization of colonies of these…
Granular media (GM) present locomotor challenges for terrestrial and extraterrestrial devices because they can flow and solidify in response to localized intrusion of wheels, limbs, and bodies. While the development of airplanes and…
We investigate by Molecular-Dynamics simulations the fast mobility - the rattling amplitude of the particles temporarily trapped by the cage of the neighbors - in mildly supercooled states of dense molecular (linear trimers) and atomic…
We investigate the spatial and temporal features of dense contaminant plumes dynamics in porous materials. Our analysis is supported by novel experimental results concerning pollutant concentration profiles inside a vertical column setup.…
Low Reynolds number swimmers frequently move near boundaries, such as spirochetes moving through porous tissues and sperm navigating the reproductive tract. Furthermore, these microorganisms must often navigate non-Newtonian fluids such as…
Soft-granular media, such as dense emulsions, foams or tissues, exhibit either fluid- or solid-like properties depending on the applied external stresses. Whereas bulk rheology of such materials has been thoroughly investigated, the…