Related papers: Transport powered by bacterial turbulence
Many swimming bacteria naturally inhabit confined environments, yet how confinement influences their swimming behaviors remains unclear. Here, we combine experiments, continuum modeling and particle-based simulations to investigate…
The motility mechanism of certain rod-shaped bacteria has long been a mystery, since no external appendages are involved in their motion which is known as gliding. However, the physical principles behind gliding motility still remain poorly…
Unraveling bacterial strategies for spatial exploration is crucial for understanding the complexity in the organization of life. Bacterial motility determines the spatio-temporal structure of microbial communities, controls infection…
Active matter such as swarming bacteria and motile colloids exhibits exotic properties different from conventional equilibrium materials. Among these properties, the enhanced diffusion of tracer particles is generally deemed as a hallmark…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
We show that transport in the presence of entropic barriers exhibits peculiar characteristics which makes it distinctly different from that occurring through energy barriers. The constrained dynamics yields a scaling regime for the particle…
Recent experiments proposed to use confined bacteria in order to generate flows near surfaces. We develop a mathematical and a computational model of this fluid transport using a linear superposition of fundamental flow singularities. The…
Bacteria possess diverse mechanisms to regulate their motility in response to environmental and physiological signals, enabling them to navigate complex habitats and adapt their behavior. Among these mechanisms, interspecies recognition…
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are endowed with an exquisite orientation mechanism allowing them to swim along the geomagnetic field lines. This mechanism consists of a chain of bio-synthesized magnetic nano-crystals that endow MTB with a…
Motility is fundamental to the survival and proliferation of microorganisms. The E. coli bacterium propels itself using a bundle of rotating helical flagella. If one flagellum reverses its rotational direction, it leaves the bundle,…
Bacterial flagellar swarming enables dense microbial populations to migrate collectively across surfaces, often resulting in emergent, coordinated behaviors. However, probing the underlying energetics of swarming at the single cluster level…
We investigate a symmetry broken dimer constrained to move in a particular direction when in contact with a heat-bath at a constant temperature. The dimer is not driven by any external force. The system gains kinetic energy from the…
The bacterial flagellar motor is a highly efficient rotary machine used by many bacteria to propel themselves. It has recently been shown that at low speeds its rotation proceeds in steps [Sowa et al. (2005) Nature 437, 916--919]. Here we…
Active matter consists of units that generate mechanical work by consuming energy. Examples include living systems, such as assemblies of bacteria and biological tissues, biopolymers driven by molecular motors, and suspensions of synthetic…
Inside cells, various cargos are transported by teams of molecular motors. Intriguingly, the motors involved generally have opposite pulling directions, and the resulting cargo dynamics is a biased stochastic motion. It is an open question…
At sufficiently high concentrations, motile bacteria suspended in fluids exhibit a range of ordered and disordered collective motions. Here we explore the combined effects of confinement, periodicity and curvature induced by the active…
We present simulations that reveal a surprisingly large effect of hydrodynamic coupling on the speed of thermal ratchet motors. The model that we use considers particles performing thermal ratchet motion in a hydrodynamic solvent. Using…
We present experiments demonstrating tube formation in giant unilamellar vesicles that are suspended in a bath of swimming E. coli bacteria. We chose the lipids such that the bacteria have no adhereing interaction with the membrane. The…
The locomotion of swimming bacteria in simple Newtonian fluids can successfully be described within the framework of low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The presence of polymers in biofluids generally increases the viscosity, which is…
To swim through a viscous fluid, a flagellated bacterium must overcome the fluid drag on its body by rotating a flagellum or a bundle of multiple flagella. Because the drag increases with the size of bacteria, it is expected theoretically…