Related papers: C. elegans in Complex Media
In tissues as diverse as amphibian skin and the human airway, the cilia that propel fluid are grouped in sparsely distributed multiciliated cells (MCCs). We investigate fluid transport in this "mosaic" architecture, with emphasis on the…
The role of activity on the hydrodynamic dispersion of bacteria in a model porous medium is studied by tracking thousands of bacteria in a microfluidic chip containing randomly placed pillars. We first evaluate the spreading dynamics of two…
Chemically active colloids or enzymes cluster into dense droplets driven by their phoretic response to collectively generated chemical gradients. Employing Brownian dynamics simulation techniques, our study of the dynamics of such a…
Motility is a fundamental survival strategy of bacteria to navigate porous environments. Swimming cells thrive in quiescent wetlands and sediments at the bottom of the marine water column, where they mediate many essential biogeochemical…
The investigation of collective behaviour in dense assemblies of self-propelled active particles has been motivated by a wide range of biological phenomena. Of particular interest are dynamical transitions of cellular and sub-cellular…
Self-propelling organisms locomote via generation of patterns of self-deformation. Despite the diversity of body plans, internal actuation schemes and environments in limbless vertebrates and invertebrates, such organisms often use similar…
We present a fast, high-throughput method for characterizing the motility of microorganisms in 3D based on standard imaging microscopy. Instead of tracking individual cells, we analyse the spatio-temporal fluctuations of the intensity in…
Active fluids, such as cytoskeletal filaments, bacterial colonies and epithelial cell layers, exhibit distinctive orientational coherence, often characterized by nematic order and topological defects. By contrast, little is known about…
Colloids dispersed in nematic liquid crystals form topological composites in which colloid-associated defects mediate interactions while adhering to fundamental topological constraints. Better realising the promise of such materials…
We investigate the effect of cooperative interactions in an ensemble of microorganisms, modelled as self-propelled disk-like and rod-like particles, in a three-dimensional turbulent flow to show flocking as an emergent phenomenon. Building…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
The dynamics of dry active matter have implications for a diverse collection of biological phenomena spanning a range of length and time scales, such as animal flocking, cell tissue dynamics, and swarming of inserts and bacteria. Uniting…
A dynamic self-organized morphology is the hallmark of network-shaped organisms like slime moulds and fungi. Organisms continuously re-organize their flexible, undifferentiated body plans to forage for food. Among these organisms the slime…
The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…
Tracking of individual particle and studying their motion serves as a direct means to understand the dynamics in crowded and complex environments. In this study, the dynamics of tracer particles in the matrix of dense soft-colloidal…
Nematic liquid crystals exhibit both crystal-like and fluid-like features. In particular, the propagation of an acoustic wave shows an unexpected occurrence of some of the solid-like features at the hydrodynamic level, namely, the…
Transport of dense core vesicles (DCVs) in neurons is crucial for distributing molecules like neuropeptides and growth factors. We studied the experimental trajectories of dynein-driven directed movement of DCVs in the ALA neuron C. elegans…
We report on an investigation of the structural and dynamical properties of n-nonyltrimethylammonium chloride (C9TAC) and erucyl bis [2-hydroxyethyl] methylammonium chloride (EMAC) micelles in aqueous solution. A fully atomistic description…
Enzymes show two distinct transport behaviors in the presence of their substrates in solution. First, their diffusivity enhances with increasing substrate concentration. In addition, enzymes perform directional motion toward regions with…
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,…