Over 2 billion years ago, cyanobacteria emerged as Earth’s first photosynthesizing organisms. Today they are widespread and critical contributors to both carbon and nitrogen cycles. Colonies can form large mats, Keep reading
Tag: active matter
Lanes in Crowds
In nature — from atoms to human crowds — two groups moving in opposite directions often spontaneously organize into interwoven lanes flowing in their respective directions. Now researchers have built Keep reading
Recreating Flocks
Birds, fish, and other creatures form amazing, undulating swarms of individuals. How these collectives comes together and move continues to fascinate scientists. Here, researchers look at simple particles with two Keep reading
Starlings Over Rome
Each winter millions of starlings migrate to Rome, where they form enormous murmurations in the sky above. The ephemeral and amorphous displays are driven by each bird responding to its Keep reading
Collective Motion in Grains
Flocks of birds and schools of fish swarm in complicated collective motions, but groups of non-living components can move collectively, too. In this Lutetium Project video, we learn about grains Keep reading
The Fluidity of Worm Blobs
The aquatic blackworm forms blobs composed of thousands of individual worms for protection against evaporation, light, and heat. The worms braid themselves together (Image 1). Once a blob forms, it Keep reading
Bacterial Turbulence
Conventional fluid dynamical wisdom posits that any flows at the microscale should be laminar. Tiny swimmers like microorganisms live in a world dominated by viscosity, therefore, there can be no Keep reading
Studying Active Polymers Using Worms
I’ve covered some odd studies in my time, but this might be the strangest: to understand how active polymers affect viscosity, researchers loaded drunk worms into a rheometer. Active polymers Keep reading
Doing the Wave
Not everything that behaves like a fluid is a liquid or a gas. In particular, groups of organisms can behave in a collective manner that is remarkably flow-like. From schools of Keep reading
Collective Motion: Waving Bees
Giant honeybees live in huge open nests. To protect themselves, they’ve developed a mesmerizing wave-like defense known as shimmering. When shimmering, the bees in a hive, beginning from a distinct Keep reading