Related papers: Viscotaxis: microswimmer navigation in viscosity g…

Microswimmers display an intriguing ability to navigate through fluids with spatially varying viscosity, a behavior known as viscotaxis, which plays a crucial role in guiding their motion. In this study, we reveal that the orientation…

Microswimmers in nature often experience spatial gradients of viscosity. In this work we develop theoretical results for the dynamics of active particles, biological or otherwise, swimming through viscosity gradients. We model the active…

Various microorganisms and some mammalian cells are able to swim in viscous fluids by performing nonreciprocal body deformations, such as rotating attached flagella or by distorting their entire body. In order to perform chemotaxis, i.e. to…

The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…

Many biological microorganisms and artificial microswimmers react to external cues of environmental gradients by changing their swimming directions. We study here the behavior of eukarytic flagellated microswimmers in linear viscosity…

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…

Conspectus: The ability to navigate in chemical gradients, called chemotaxis, is crucial for the survival of microorganisms. It allows them to find food and to escape from toxins. Many microorganisms can produce the chemicals to which they…

Living microorganisms are capable of a tactic response to external stimuli by swimming towards or away from the stimulus source; they do so by adapting their tactic signal transduction pathways to the environment. Their self-motility thus…

Organisms often swim through fluids that are spatially inhomogeneous. If the fluids are polymeric, gradients in polymer concentration may lead to gradients in both fluid viscosity and elasticity. In this letter, we present theoretical…

Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…

Controlling the swimming behavior of bacteria is crucial, for example, to prevent contamination of ducts and catheters. We show the bacteria modeled by deformable microswimmers can accumulate in flows through straight microchannels either…

Biofilms are spatially organized microorganism colonies embedded in a self-produced matrix, conferring to the microbial community resistance to environmental stresses. Motile bacteria have been observed swimming in the matrix of pathogenic…

Self-propelled bacteria are marvels of nature with a potential to power dynamic materials and microsystems of the future. The challenge is in commanding their chaotic behavior. By dispersing swimming Bacillus subtilis in a…

Biological and artificial microswimmers often self-propel in external flows of vortical nature; relevant examples include algae in small-scale ocean eddies, spermatozoa in uterine peristaltic flows and bacteria in microfluidic devices. A…

Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…

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…

It has long been known that some microswimmers seem to swim counter-intuitively faster when the viscosity of the surrounding fluid is increased, whereas others slow down. This conflicting dependence of the swimming velocity on the viscosity…

Many microorganisms and artificial microswimmers use helical appendages in order to generate locomotion. Though often rotated so as to produce thrust, some species of bacteria such Spiroplasma, Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Spirochetes induce…

Phototaxis is a light driven self-locomotion of mass and a common phenomenon in motile organisms with varieties of motility such as in bacteria, algae, etc. In naturally occurring organisms, mechanical force is generated utilising their…

Transport of material across liquid interfaces is ubiquitous for living cells and is also a crucial step in drug delivery and in many industrial processes. The fluids that are present on either side of the interfaces will usually have…