Related papers: Short-term memory effects in the phototactic behav…
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…
{\sl Escherichia coli} ({\sl E. coli}) bacteria govern their trajectories by switching between running and tumbling modes as a function of the nutrient concentration they experienced in the past. At short time one observes a drift of the…
Chemotaxis and haptotaxis have been a main theme in the macroscopic study of bacterial and cellular motility. In this work we investigate the influence these processes have on the shape and motility of fast migrating cells. We note that…
Molecular crystals respond to a light stimulus by bending, twisting, rolling, jumping, or other kinematic behaviors. These behaviors are known to be affected by, among others, the intensity of the incident light, the aspect ratios of…
Electrodynamic interactions between biomolecules are of potential biological interest for signaling warranting investigation of their activation through various mechanisms in living systems. Here, using as model system a light harvesting…
Chemotaxis and reactions are fundamental processes in biology, often intricately intertwined. Chemotaxis, in particular, can be crucial in maintaining and accelerating a reaction. In this work, we extend the investigation initiated by…
Synaptic plasticity, the dynamic tuning of signal transmission strength between neurons, serves as a fundamental basis for memory and learning in biological organisms. This adaptive nature of synapses is considered one of the key features…
Most cells possess the capacity to locomote. Alone or collectively, this allows them to adapt, to rearrange, and to explore their surroundings. The biophysical characterization of such motile processes, in health and disease, has so far…
Memory can remarkably modify the collective behaviors of active particles. We show that in a micellar fluid, Quincke particles driven by a square-wave electric field exhibit a frequency-dependent memory. Upon increasing the frequency, a…
The persistent motility of the individual constituents in microbial suspensions represents a prime example of so-called active matter systems. Cells consume energy, exert forces and move, overall releasing the constraints of equilibrium…
Active turbulence arises typically in systems ranging from microorganisms and biopolymers to synthetic colloids, where chaotic flows are closely associated with motile topological defects in collectively swarming suspensions. Here, we…
Chemotaxis enables marine bacteria to increase encounters with phytoplankton cells by reducing their search times, provided that bacteria detect noisy chemical gradients around phytoplankton. Gradient detection depends on bacterial…
This article deals with dynamical systems depending on a slowly varying parameter. We present several physical examples illustrating memory effects, such as metastability and hysteresis, which frequently appear in these systems. A…
Rapid modulation of the electromagnetic response in both time and space creates temporal boundaries in the medium and leads to time-reflection and time-refraction of light and to the eventual formation of the photonic time crystal within…
We study the distribution of swimming micro-organisms advected by a model turbulent flow and attracted towards a localised light source through phototaxis. It is shown that particles aggregate along a dynamical attractor with fractal…
Chlorosomes are likely the largest and most efficient natural light-harvesting photosynthetic antenna systems. They are composed of large numbers of bacteriochlorophylls organized into supramolecular aggregates. We explore the microscopic…
A quantitative understanding of how sensory signals are transformed into motor outputs places useful constraints on brain function and helps reveal the brain's underlying computations. We investigate how the nematode C. elegans responds to…
In the presence of a laminar shear flow, the diffusion of passive colloidal particles is enhanced in the direction parallel to the flow. This classical phenomenon is known as Taylor-Aris dispersion. Besides, microorganisms, such as active…
Nutrient limitation is one of the most common triggers of antibiotic tolerance and persistence. Here, we present two microfluidic setups to study how spatial and temporal variation in nutrient availability lead to increased survival of…
Biological tissues have been observed to display emergent fluid-like properties, owing to physical interactions between cells. However, it remains unclear in general how these fluid-like properties affect tissue structure and function.…