Related papers: Bio-Inspired Energy Distribution for Programmable …
Bacterial swarming is a rapid mass-migration, in which thousands of cells spread collectively to colonize a surface. Physically, swarming is a natural example of active particles that use energy to generate motion. Accordingly,…
Over three decades of scientific endeavors to realize programmable matter, a substance that can change its physical properties based on user input or responses to its environment, there have been many advances in both the engineering of…
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…
Phototrophic organisms such as plants, photosynthetic bacteria and algae use microscopic complexes of pigment molecules to absorb sunlight. Within the light-harvesting complexes, which frequently have several functional and structural…
Biological molecular machines are enzymes that simultaneously catalyze two processes, one donating free energy and second accepting it. Recent studies show that most native protein enzymes have a rich stochastic dynamics that often…
Addressing a fundamental problem in programmable matter, we present the first deterministic algorithm to elect a unique leader in a system of connected amoebots assuming only that amoebots are initially contracted. Previous algorithms…
Bacteria are easily characterizable model organisms with an impressively complicated set of capabilities. Among their capabilities is quorum sensing, a detailed cell-cell signaling system that may have a common origin with eukaryotic…
Predators and their foraging strategies often determine ecosystem structure and function. Yet, the role of protozoan predators in microbial soil ecosystems remains elusive despite the importance of these ecosystems to global biogeochemical…
Biofilms are bacterial aggregates encased in a self-produced polymeric matrix which attach to moist surfaces and are extremely resistant to chemicals and antibiotics. Recent experiments show that their structure is defined by the interplay…
The bacterium {\em Bacilus subtilis} frequently forms biofilms at the interface between the culture medium and the air. We develop a mathematical model that couples a description of bacteria as individual discrete objects to the standard…
From multicellular tissues to bacterial colonies, three dimensional cellular structures arise through the interaction of cellular activities and mechanical forces. Simple bacterial communities provide model systems for analyzing such…
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…
We propose a computational framework to study the growth and spread of bacterial biofilms on interfaces, as well as the action of antibiotics on them. Bacterial membranes are represented by boundaries immersed in a fluid matrix and subject…
The applicability of the swarm robots to perform foraging tasks is inspired by their compact size and cost. A considerable amount of energy is required to perform such tasks, especially if the tasks are continuous and/or repetitive.…
The design of biologically-inspired wireless communication systems using bacteria as the basic element of the system is initially motivated by a phenomenon called \emph{Quorum Sensing}. Due to high randomness in the individual behavior of a…
Biofilms are ubiquitous macro-colonies of bacteria that develop at various interfaces (solid-liquid, solid-gas or liquid-gas). The formation of biofilms starts with the attachment of individual bacteria to an interface, where they…
One of the major characteristics of living organisms is metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy produced per unit of time. When the mass of organisms increases, the metabolic rate also increases (usually as a power function of mass),…
Growing tissue and bacterial colonies are active matter systems where cell divisions and cellular motion generate active stress. Although they operate in the non-equilibrium regime, these biological systems can form large-scale ordered…
The importance of low power consumption is widely acknowledged due to the increasing use of portable devices, which require minimizing the consumption of energy. The energy in a computational system depends heavily on the software being…
Bacteria organize in a variety of collective states, from swarming, which has been attributed to rapid surface exploration, to biofilms, which are highly dense immobile communities attributed to stress resistance. It has been suggested that…