相关论文: Are bacteria claustrophobic? The problem of microm…
We study the dynamics of proliferating cell collectives whose microscopic constituents' growth is inhibited by macroscopic growth-induced stress. Discrete particle simulations of a growing collective show the emergence of concentric-ring…
The evolutionary transition to multicellularity transformed life on earth, allowing for the evolution of large, complex organisms. While multicellularity can be strongly advantageous, its earliest stages bring unique physical challenges.…
A packed community of exponentially proliferating microbes will spread in size exponentially. However, due to nutrient depletion, mechanical constraints, or other limitations, exponential proliferation is not indefinite, and the spreading…
Soft surfaces, spanning vastly different environmental and biomedical settings, are frequently colonised by surface-associated bacteria. Yet, how soft surfaces govern bacterial dynamics and their self-organisation into colonies remains…
The emergent spatial patterns generated by growing bacterial colonies have been the focus of intense study in physics during the last twenty years. Both experimental and theoretical investigations have made possible a clear qualitative…
Despite the importance that fluid flow plays in transporting and organizing populations, few laboratory systems exist to systematically investigate the impact of advection on their spatial evolutionary dynamics. To address this problem, we…
Self-organized dynamic patterns in dense active matter are striking manifestations of non-equilibrium physics. A prominent example is the macroscopic elliptical motion observed in quasi-2D bacterial suspensions, which has lacked a physical…
Flagellar-driven locomotion plays a critical role in bacterial attachment and colonization of surfaces, contributing to the risks of contamination and infection. Tremendous attempts to uncover the underlying principles governing bacterial…
Segregation of populations is a key question in evolution theory. One important aspect is the relation between spatial organization and the population's composition. Here we study a specific example -- sectors in expanding bacterial…
Bacteria evolve in volatile environments and complex spatial structures. Migration, fluctuations and environmental variability therefore have a significant impact on the evolution of microbial populations. Here, we consider a class of…
Bacterial cells exhibit a diverse array of shapes and sizes, largely governed by their cell walls in conjunction with cytoskeletal proteins and internal turgor pressure. The present study develops a theoretical framework for modeling the…
Understanding mixing and transport of passive scalars in active fluids is important to many natural (e.g. algal blooms) and industrial (e.g. biofuel, vaccine production) processes. Here, we study the mixing of a passive scalar (dye) in…
Space-saving design is a requirement that is encountered in biological systems and the development of modern technological devices alike. Many living organisms dynamically pack their polymer chains, filaments or membranes inside of…
One of the most challenging problems in microbiology is to understand how a small fraction of microbes that resists killing by antibiotics can emerge in a population of genetically identical cells, the phenomenon known as persistence or…
Proliferation is a defining feature of life. Through growth, division, and death, living systems consume energy and inject mass, breaking conservation laws and driving collective phenomena from biofilm formation to embryonic development.…
We experimentally investigate how aerotactic bacteria, confined within a thin liquid film between two solid substrates, respond to a controlled oxygen gradient. We find that the total bacterial number density dictates which mechanism…
Surfaces formed by extracellular polymeric substances enclosing individual and some small communities of {\it Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans} on plates of hydrophobic silicon and hydrophilic mica are analyzed by means of atomic force…
The dynamic behavior of microtubules in solution can be strongly modified by interactions with walls or other structures. We examine here a microtubule growth model where the increase in size of the plus-end is perturbed by collisions with…
Gene-knockout experiments on single-cell organisms have established that expression of a substantial fraction of genes is not needed for optimal growth. This problem acquired a new dimension with the recent discovery that environmental and…
The design of protocols to suppress the propagation of viral infections is an enduring enterprise, especially hindered by limited knowledge of the mechanisms through which extinction of infection propagation comes about. We here report on a…