Related papers: Dynamic density shaping of light driven bacteria
Many chemotactic bacteria inhabit environments in which chemicals appear as localized pulses and evolve by processes such as diffusion and mixing. We show that, in such environments, physical limits on the accuracy of temporal gradient…
In order to grow in any given environment, bacteria need to collect information about the medium composition and implement suitable growth strategies by adjusting their regulatory and metabolic degrees of freedom. In the standard sense,…
Collective motion is a phenomenon observed across length scales in nature, from bacterial swarming and tissue migration to the flocking of animals. The mechanisms underlying this behavior vary significantly depending on the biological…
Cooperation is vital for the survival of a swarm$^1$. Large scale cooperation allows murmuring starlings to outmaneuver preying falcons$^2$, shoaling sardines to outsmart sea lions$^3$, and homo sapiens to outlive their Pleistocene…
Organisms often swim through density stratified fluids. In this Letter, we investigate the dynamics of small active particles swimming in density gradients and report theoretical evidence of taxis as a result of density stratification…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Anaerobic processes (e.g., methanogenesis and fermentation) largely contribute to element cycling and natural contaminant attenuation/mobilization, even in well-oxygenated porous environments, such as shallow aquifers. This paradox is…
Micromotors pushed by biological entities, like motile bacteria, constitute a fascinating way to convert chemical energy into mechanical work at the micrometer scale. Here we show, by using numerical simulations, that a properly designed…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
Diverse processes--e.g. bioremediation, biofertilization, and microbial drug delivery--rely on bacterial migration in disordered, three-dimensional (3D) porous media. However, how pore-scale confinement alters bacterial motility is unknown…
The study of how photosynthetic organisms convert light offers insight not only into nature's evolutionary process, but may also give clues as to how best to design and manipulate artificial photosynthetic systems -- and also how far we can…
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…
Synthetic microswimmers mimicking biological movements at the microscale have been developed in recent years. Actuating helical magnetic materials with a homogeneous rotating magnetic field is one of the most widespread techniques for…
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…
Marine microorganisms often reach high swimming speeds, either to take advantage of evanescent nutrient patches or to beat Brownian forces. Since this implies that a sizable part of their energetic budget must be allocated to motion, it is…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Self-propelled active particles exhibit delayed responses to environmental changes, modulating their propulsion speed through intrinsic sensing and feedback mechanisms. This adaptive behavior fundamentally determines their dynamics and…
Inspired by biology's use of vesicles for targeted transport, many studies have propelled liposomes with active matter, creating synthetic systems that can be viewed as microscale biohybrid robots. Nevertheless, the underlying motility…