Biological sciences articles within Nature Physics

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  • Letter |

    Activity in certain living systems can lead to swirling flows akin to turbulence. Here, the authors connect the dynamics of topological defects in starfish oocyte membranes to vortex dynamics in 2D Bose–Einstein condensates.

    • Tzer Han Tan
    • , Jinghui Liu
    •  & Nikta Fakhri

  • Article |

    Groups of fish tend to move in an organized fashion. Here the authors investigate the behaviour of schools of freshwater fish and find that schooling is induced by noise; the smaller the group size, the greater the noise and hence the greater the alignment.

    • Jitesh Jhawar
    • , Richard G. Morris
    •  & Vishwesha Guttal

  • Letter |

    The motor protein dynein is associated with microtubule force generation in the cell; how it interacts with cytoskeletal fluctuations is still an open question. Here the authors show that dynein can harness these fluctuations to generate power and move faster towards the minus-end of microtubules.

    • Yasin Ezber
    • , Vladislav Belyy
    •  & Ahmet Yildiz

  • Article |

    A detailed theoretical and experimental investigation of homogeneous cell tissues finds that they can undergo spontaneous spatial symmetry breaking through a purely electrophysiological mechanism.

    • Harold M. McNamara
    • , Rajath Salegame
    •  & Adam E. Cohen

  • News & Views |

    Synchronization of biochemical oscillators that are responsible for biological rhythms costs free energy. This theoretical result suggests that part of the adenosine triphosphate molecules consumed by a Kai oscillator is necessary for synchronization.

    • Andre C. Barato

  • News & Views |

    Physical forces have a profound influence on bacterial cell function and physiology. The new tools of nanophysics are bringing to light a tight connection between biomolecular mechanisms and mechanical forces in bacterial cell division.

    • Albertus Viljoen
    •  & Yves F. Dufrêne

  • Review Article |

    Cell size is regulated by processes ranging from rapid fluctuations to slower growth and division. Limited dialogue between communities studying these disparate timescales has hindered our understanding of size control—a gap bridged by this Review.

    • Clotilde Cadart
    • , Larisa Venkova
    •  & Matthieu Piel

  • News & Views |

    Whether a cell divides symmetrically or asymmetrically during early development determines the fate of its progeny. Now cell size has emerged as a key player in making this decision.

    • Alexandra Jilkine

  • Article |

    An observation that cells at the edge of a healing wound readily undergo intercalation leads to the finding that tissue fluidity is crucial for effective wound closure.

    • Robert J. Tetley
    • , Michael F. Staddon
    •  & Yanlan Mao

  • Article |

    The proteins tasked with establishing polarity in a cell undergo reaction–diffusion dynamics that are shown here to impose a cell-size threshold on polarization. The limit may facilitate switching between symmetric and asymmetric modes of division.

    • Lars Hubatsch
    • , Florent Peglion
    •  & Nathan W. Goehring

  • Article |

    Modelling and microscopy of thousands of cells together reveal the coupling through which the cell cycle influences the circadian clock. This coupling may explain why mammalian tissues growing at different rates have shifted circadian rhythms.

    • Colas Droin
    • , Eric R. Paquet
    •  & Felix Naef

  • Article |

    Microtubules vary their length by gaining and shedding tubulin dimers dynamically at both ends. But evidence now suggests that dimers may also be incorporated into the middle of the shaft—calling into question existing models of growth dynamics.

    • Laura Schaedel
    • , Sarah Triclin
    •  & Karin John

  • News & Views |

    Experiments and simulations show that trains of droplets in microfluidic networks undergo synchronized oscillations, and that strategies to prevent these oscillations can help maintain uniform distribution of red blood cells in microcirculation.

    • Siva A. Vanapalli

  • News & Views |

    An experimental study of living cells suggests that single myosin molecules are capable of generating unusually large forces. The observation is supported by a theoretical model — and demonstrates the complexity of in vivo force generation.

    • Andrew W. Holle
    •  & Ralf Kemkemer

  • Article |

    When a wound heals, different types of branched and bundled actin structure form, each designed to perform a specific function. Experiments and theory now suggest that the actin architecture depends on the stiffness of the cell’s surroundings.

    • Visar Ajeti
    • , A. Pasha Tabatabai
    •  & Michael P. Murrell

  • Article |

    High-resolution experiments attribute surprisingly large forces to the molecular motors helping a cell sense its surroundings. A two-state theory interprets the contractile properties of these motors as emergent features of their collective behaviour.

    • James Lohner
    • , Jean-Francois Rupprecht
    •  & Michael P. Sheetz

  • Letter |

    A continuous version of the Maxwell demon is a machine that repeatedly monitors a system, but extracts work only on state change. Arbitrarily large quantities of work can thus be extracted, as demonstrated by DNA hairpin pulling experiments.

    • M. Ribezzi-Crivellari
    •  & F. Ritort

  • Article |

    Bacteria swimming near surfaces can get trapped in circular trajectories that lead nowhere, hindering efficient surface exploration. A harmful strain of bacteria is now shown to circumvent the problem by exploiting transient surface adhesion events.

    • Emiliano Perez Ipiña
    • , Stefan Otte
    •  & Fernando Peruani

  • Article |

    The same type of polymer network deforms cell membranes inward, to absorb external material, and outward, to facilitate signal transmission. Experiments and theory show that these deformations are regulated by membrane tension and network mesh size.

    • Camille Simon
    • , Rémy Kusters
    •  & Cécile Sykes

  • News & Views |

    A two-state hopping experiment combined with a dynamical systems model reveals that cancer cells are deterministically driven across barriers, whereas normal cells cross only with the help of stochastic fluctuations.

    • Ulrich S. Schwarz

  • News & Views |

    An inspired experimental approach sheds light on the formation of active turbulence in a system of microtubules and molecular motors. The emergent scaling behaviour takes us a step closer to understanding how activity begets turbulence.

    • Seth Fraden

  • Article |

    Actomyosin networks with rapid turnover self-organize within droplets, forming a dynamic steady-state with persistent flows. The networks exhibit homogeneous, density-independent contraction, implying that active stress scales with viscosity.

    • Maya Malik-Garbi
    • , Niv Ierushalmi
    •  & Kinneret Keren

  • Research Highlight |

    • Abigail Klopper

  • Research Highlight |

    • Abigail Klopper

  • News & Views |

    A large-scale imaging study has tracked thousands of bacteria living in three-dimensional biofilms. This technical tour de force reveals the importance of mechanical interactions between cells for building local and global structure.

    • Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo

  • Letter |

    Single-cell tracking of up to 10,000 bacteria reveals the structure and dynamics of 3D biofilms—providing evidence to suggest that both local ordering and global biofilm architecture emerge from mechanical interactions.

    • Raimo Hartmann
    • , Praveen K. Singh
    •  & Knut Drescher

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