Related papers: Biomedical active matter: Emergence and breakdown …

Spontaneous self-assembly in molecular systems is a fundamental route to both biological and engineered soft matter. Simple micellisation, emulsion formation, and polymer mixing principles are well understood. However, the principles behind…

Mixtures of active and passive particles are ubiquitous at the microscale. Many essential microbial processes involve interactions with dead or immotile cells or passive crowders. When passive objects are immersed in active baths, their…

Plant morphogenesis relies on dynamic growth deformations at the cell and tissue scales driven by osmotic fluxes. A mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon demands a physical framework that integrates cell imbibition, tissue mechanics,…

Active systems across scales, ranging from molecular machines to human crowds, are usually modeled as assemblies of self-propelled particles driven by internally generated forces. However, these models often assume memoryless dynamics and…

Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…

Humanity has long sought inspiration from nature to innovate materials and devices. As science advances, nature-inspired materials are becoming part of our lives. Animate materials, characterized by their activity, adaptability, and…

Single-molecule biophysics has transformed our understanding of the fundamental molecular processes involved in living biological systems, but also of the fascinating physics of life. Far more exotic than a collection of exemplars of soft…

Even when concepts similar to emergence have been used since antiquity, we lack an agreed definition. However, emergence has been identified as one of the main features of complex systems. Most would agree on the statement ``life is…

Biological and robotic systems often operate in confined environments where material must be gathered without centralized control. Inspired by the effective collection strategies of aquatic worms (Lumbriculus variegatus and Tubifex…

Collective motion is ubiquitous in nature; groups of animals, such as fish, birds, and ungulates appear to move as a whole, exhibiting a rich behavioral repertoire that ranges from directed movement to milling to disordered swarming.…

Noise threads every scale of the natural world. Once dismissed as mere background hiss, it is now recognized as both a currency of information and a source of order in systems driven far from equilibrium. From nanometer-scale motor proteins…

In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous…

The design of amorphous entangled systems, specifically from soft and active materials, has the potential to open exciting new classes of active, shape-shifting, and task-capable 'smart' materials. However, the global emergent mechanics…

Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…

This article aims to introduce the broad field of soft active matter physics and its relevance to the life sciences in simple, accessible language. Although this area of research is relatively new, it has already demonstrated significant…

Active solids consist of elastically coupled out-of-equilibrium units performing work. They are central to autonomous processes, such as locomotion, self-oscillations and rectification, in biological systems,designer materials and robotics.…

Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine's parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today's engineering frontier, building artificial…

Anomalous diffusion, manifest as a nonlinear temporal evolution of the position mean square displacement, and/or non-Gaussian features of the position statistics, is prevalent in biological transport processes. Likewise, collective behavior…

Differently from passive Brownian particles, active particles, also known as self-propelled Brownian particles or microswimmers and nanoswimmers, are capable of taking up energy from their environment and converting it into directed motion.…

Active living matter continuously creates and annihilates topological defects in a process that remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate these dynamics in two distinct active living systems: swarming bacteria and human bronchial…