Related papers: Controlling microalgae populations by phototactic …
Motility coupled to responsive behavior is essential for many microorganisms to seek and establish appropriate habitats. One of the simplest possible responses, reversing the direction of motion, is believed to enable filamentous…
We present a method based on a time domain simulation of wave propagation that allows studying the optical response of a broad range of dielectric photonic structures. This method is particularly suitable for dealing with complex biological…
One of the biggest challenges in biology is to understand how activity at the cellular level of neurons, as a result of their mutual interactions, leads to the observed behavior of an organism responding to a variety of environmental…
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…
When the motion of a motile cell is observed closely, it appears erratic, and yet the combination of nonequilibrium forces and surfaces can produce striking examples of organization in microbial systems. While most of our current…
Smart active particles can acquire some limited knowledge of the fluid environment from simple mechanical cues and exert a control on their preferred steering direction. Their goal is to learn the best way to navigate by exploiting the…
As the closest unicellular relatives of animals, choanoflagellates serve as useful model organisms for understanding the evolution of animal multicellularity. An important factor in animal evolution was the increasing ocean oxygen levels in…
In contexts ranging from embryonic development to bacterial ecology, cell populations migrate chemotactically along self-generated chemical gradients, often forming a propagating front. Here, we theoretically show that the stability of such…
Eukaryotic swimming cells such as spermatozoa, algae or protozoa use flagella or cilia to move in viscous fluids. The motion of their flexible appendages in the surrounding fluid induces propulsive forces that balance with the viscous drag…
Photosynthetic organisms rely on a series of self-assembled nanostructures with tuned electronic energy levels in order to transport energy from where it is collected by photon absorption, to reaction centers where the energy is used to…
Directed collective cell migration is central in morphogenesis, wound healing and cancer progression1,2. Although it is well-accepted that the molecular anisotropy of the micro-environment guides this migration3,4, its impact on the pattern…
In this fluid dynamics video, we demonstrate the microscale mixing enhancement of passive tracer particles in suspensions of swimming microalgae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. These biflagellated, single-celled eukaryotes (10 micron diameter)…
Cells have evolved efficient strategies to probe their surroundings and navigate through complex environments. From metastatic spread in the body to swimming cells in porous materials, escape through narrow constrictions - a key component…
Decision-making is the process of selecting an action among alternatives, allowing biological and artificial systems to navigate complex environments and optimize behavior. While neural systems rely on neuron-based sensory processing and…
The onset of light-induced bioconvection via linear stability theory is investigated qualitatively for a suspension of phototactic algae. The forward scattering algal suspension is uniformly illuminated by both diffuse and oblique…
Bacterial cells navigate around their environment by directing their movement along chemical gradients. This process, known as chemotaxis, can promote the rapid expansion of bacterial populations into previously unoccupied territories.…
The cell wall serves as a mechanical protection for the fungi and controls the traffic of molecules entering the cell. However, the optical role of the cell wall has not been fully investigated. In this work, we use a computational…
Phytoplankton are microscopic algae responsible for roughly half of the world's photosynthesis that play a critical role in global carbon cycles and oxygen production, and measuring the abundance of their subtypes across a wide range of…
Cells frequently employ extracellular vesicles, or exosomes, to signal across long distances and coordinate collective actions. Exosomes diffuse slowly, can be actively degraded, and contain stochastic amounts of molecular cargo. These…
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…