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The corner stone of the classical model after Huxley and Simmons is supposition that a myosin head can reside only in several discrete states and irregularly jumps from one state to another. Until now, it has not been found a way to…
Previous studies on peristalsis, the pumping of fluid along a channel by wave-like displacements of the channel walls, have shown that the elastic properties of the channel and the peristaltic wave shape can influence the flow rate.…
Many bacteria are motile by means of one or more rotating rigid helical flagella, making them the only known organism to use rotation as a means of propulsion. The rotation is supplied by the bacterial flagellar motor, a particularly…
Biological locomotion, observed in the flexible wings of birds and insects, bodies and fins of aquatic mammals and fishes, consists of their ability to morph the wings/fins. The morphing capability holds significance in the abilities of…
Context. During their journey to perihelion, comets may appear in the field-of-view of space-borne optical instruments, showing in some cases a nicely developed plasma tail extending from their coma and exhibiting an oscillatory behaviour.…
Here we characterize the motility of athermal swimming droplets within the framework of active rotational diffusion. Just like active colloids, their trajectories can be modeled with a constant velocity $V$ and a slow angular diffusion, but…
Using high-resolution collisionless N-body simulations we study the properties of tidal tails formed in the immediate vicinity of a two-component dwarf galaxy evolving in a static potential of the Milky Way (MW). The stellar component of…
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has emerged as a model for self-organisation and coordination of contractile activity at large spatial scales. This self-organisation largely results from cytoplasmic flows generated by propagating…
We propose a reciprocal, self-propelled model swimmer at intermediate Reynolds numbers ($Re$). Our swimmer consists of two unequal spheres that oscillate in antiphase generating nonlinear steady streaming (SS) flows. We show computationally…
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…
A flagellated bacterium navigates fluid environments by rotating its helical flagellar bundle. The wobbling of the bacterial body significantly influences its swimming behavior. To quantify the three underlying motions--precession,…
Left-right symmetry breaking is critical to vertebrate embryonic development; in many species this process begins with cilia-driven flow in a structure termed the `node'. Primary `whirling' cilia, tilted towards the posterior, transport…
Here we show that coupling to curvature has profound effects on collective motion in active systems, leading to patterns not observed in flat space. Biological examples of such active motion in curved environments are numerous: curvature…
Eukaryotes swim with coordinated flagellar (ciliary) beating and steer by fine-tuning the coordination. The model organism for studying flagellate motility, C. reinhardtii (CR), employs synchronous, breast-stroke-like flagellar beating to…
Elastic waves propagating at the interface of soft solids can be altered by the presence of external forces such as capillarity or gravity. We measure the dispersion relation of waves at the free surface of agarose gels with great accuracy,…
Hydrodynamics and confinement dominate bacterial mobility near solid or air-water boundaries, causing flagellated bacteria to move in circular trajectories. This phenomenon results from the counter-rotation between the bacterial body and…
Microorganisms such as algae and bacteria move in a viscous environment with extremely low Reynolds ($Re$), where the viscous drag dominates the inertial forces. They have adapted to this environment by developing specialized features such…
We study the dynamics of sail membranes during a tacking maneuver, when the sail angle of attack is reversed in order to sail upwind. In successful tacking the sail flips to the mirror-image shape, while in unsuccessful tacking the sail…
The molecular motor myosin V exhibits a wide repertoire of pathways during the stepping process, which is intimately connected to its biological function. The best understood of these is hand-over-hand stepping by a swinging lever arm…
Bacteria predate plants and animals by billions of years. Today, they are the world's smallest cells yet they represent the bulk of the world's biomass, and the main reservoir of nutrients for higher organisms. Most bacteria can move on…