Related papers: Nutrient transport driven by microbial active carp…

Communities of swimming microorganisms often thrive near liquid-air interfaces. We study how such `active carpets' shape their aquatic environment by driving biogenic transport in the water column beneath them. The hydrodynamic stirring…

Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…

The ability of many living systems to actively self-propel underlies critical biomedical, environmental, and industrial processes. While such active transport is well-studied in uniform settings, environmental complexities such as geometric…

Slicks are thin viscous films that can be found at the air--water interface of water bodies such as lakes, rivers and oceans. These micro-layers are enriched in surfactants, organic matter, and microorganisms, and exhibit steep physical and…

Active matter comprises self-driven units, such as bacteria and synthetic microswimmers, that can spontaneously form complex patterns and assemble into functional microdevices. These processes are possible thanks to the out-of-equilibrium…

As society paves its way towards device miniaturization and precision medicine, micro-scale actuation and guided transport become increasingly prominent research fields with high impact in both technological and clinical contexts. In order…

We demonstrate a general method to assemble and propel highly maneuverable colloidal carpets which can be steered via remote control in any direction of the plane. These colloidal micropropellers are composed by an ensemble of spinning…

One of the major challenges in modern robotics is controlling micromanipulation by active and adaptive materials. In the respiratory system, such actuation enables pathogen clearance by means of motile cilia. While various types of…

Sessile ciliates attach to substrates and generate feeding currents to capture passing particulates and dissolved nutrients. Optimal ciliary activity that maximizes nutrient flux at the cell surface while minimizing the rate of hydrodynamic…

Large cells often rely on cytoplasmic flows for intracellular transport, maintaining homeostasis, and positioning cellular components. Understanding the mechanisms of these flows is essential for gaining insights into cell function,…

Biological systems achieve precise control over ambient fluids through the self-organization of active protein structures including flagella, cilia, and cytoskeletal networks. In active structures individual proteins consume chemical energy…

Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…

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…

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…

Many active particles, both of biological and synthetic origin, can have a light controllable propulsion speed, a property that in biology is commonly referred to as photokinesis. Here we investigate directed transport of photokinetic…

Living systems routinely consume energy to achieve motility, often using intricate biomolecular machinery. In this work, we show that active droplets can sustain indefinite self-propulsion of a spherical colloid in an otherwise homogeneous,…

Active particles such as swimming bacteria or self-propelled colloids are known to spontaneously organize into fascinating large-scale dynamic structures. The emergence of these collective states from the motility pattern of the individual…

Enhanced colloidal transport beyond the limit imposed by diffusion is usually achieved through external fields. Here, we demonstrate the ballistic transport of a colloidal sphere using internal sources of energy provided by an attached…

Cells control fluid flows with a spatial and temporal precision that far exceeds the capabilities of current microfluidic technologies. Cells achieve this superior spatio-temporal control by harnessing dynamic networks of cytoskeleton and…

Randomly moving active particles can be herded into directed motion by asymmetric geometric structures. Although such a rectification process has been extensively studied due to its fundamental, biological, and technological relevance, a…