Biological sciences articles within Nature Physics

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  • News & Views |

    Many microorganisms use light-sensitive receptors to migrate. A case in point is the microalga Euglena gracilis, which avoids light intensity increases by swimming in polygonal trajectories — providing an elegant solution to navigational challenges.

    • Nicolas Waisbord
    •  & Jeffrey S. Guasto

  • News & Views |

    An active counterpart to passive wetting is an encouraging sign for tissue physics and, more generally, the interface between biology and physics.

    • Richard G. Morris
    •  & Alpha S. Yap

  • Article |

    An analogy with wetting has proven apt for describing how groups of cells spread on a substrate. But cells are active: they polarize, generate forces and adhere to their surroundings. Experiments now find agreement with an active update to the theory.

    • Carlos Pérez-González
    • , Ricard Alert
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • Article |

    A rigid particle moving along a soft wall feels a repulsive force that can reduce its drag. Evidence now suggests that for thin enough walls the particle can be displaced appreciably—a finding that may have implications for biological membranes.

    • Bhargav Rallabandi
    • , Naomi Oppenheimer
    •  & Howard A. Stone

  • News & Views |

    Mapping cell lineages onto a problem in graph theory suggests that physical principles regulate cell positioning during egg development in the fruit fly — providing an elegant example of how physics can advance our understanding of biology.

    • Ben D. MacArthur

  • News & Views |

    Cells in embryonic tissues generate coordinated forces to close small wounds rapidly without scarring. New research shows that large cell-to-cell variations in these forces are a key system feature that surprisingly speeds up wound healing.

    • M. Shane Hutson

  • Perspective |

    Robust and responsive, the surface of a cell is as important as its interior when it comes to mechanically regulating form and function. New techniques are shedding light on this role, and a common language to describe its properties is now needed.

    • Alba Diz-Muñoz
    • , Orion D. Weiner
    •  & Daniel A. Fletcher

  • Comment |

    Understanding the behaviour of almost any biological object is a fundamentally multiscale problem — a challenge that biophysicists have been increasingly embracing, building on two centuries of biophysical studies at a variety of length scales.

    • Ewa K. Paluch

  • Review Article |

    It may look like little more than slime, but the glycocalyx coating our cells plays a key role in cell signalling. And changes to its physical structure have been linked to cancer, triggering emergent behaviours that form the focus of this Review.

    • Joe Chin-Hun Kuo
    • , Jay G. Gandhi
    •  & Matthew J. Paszek

  • Review Article |

    The behaviour of cells and tissues can be understood in terms of emergent mesoscale states that are determined by a set of physical properties. This Review surveys experimental evidence for these states and the physics underpinning them.

    • Xavier Trepat
    •  & Erik Sahai

  • News & Views |

    Understanding how natural surfaces repel foulants by wrinkling seems like a simple matter of elasticity. But the nonlinear behaviours that emerge from dimensional effects make for some intriguing new physics.

    • Haim Diamant

  • Article |

    Natural surfaces better their synthetic counterparts at coping with biofouling. A characterization of topography-induced delamination reveals a mechanism whereby elastic energy drives the crack propagation that facilitates surface renewal.

    • Luka Pocivavsek
    • , Joseph Pugar
    •  & Enrique Cerda

  • Article |

    Biofilms of rod-shaped bacteria can grow from a two-dimensional layer of founder cells into a three-dimensional structure with a vertically aligned core. Here, the physics underlying this transition is traced down to the properties of individual cells.

    • Farzan Beroz
    • , Jing Yan
    •  & Ned S. Wingreen

  • News & Views |

    Magnetic tweezer measurements have revealed the forces associated with a star-shaped structure responsible for moving the sperm nucleus to the centre of the egg cell following fertilization.

    • Carlos Garzon-Coral
    •  & Jonathon Howard

  • Research Highlight |

    • Jan Philip Kraack

  • News & Views |

    Streams of motile cells appear in both healthy development and the evolution of tumours. A study of cells under lateral confinement now suggests their activity plays a key role in triggering these flows.

    • Francesc Sagués

  • Letter |

    Antiparallel streams of nematically oriented cells arise in both embryonic development and cancer. In vitro experiments and a hydrodynamic active gel theory suggest that these cells are subject to a transition that is driven by their activity.

    • G. Duclos
    • , C. Blanch-Mercader
    •  & P. Silberzan

  • News & Views |

    Cells change shape and volume when they divide — not a simple task, especially when they are confined by surrounding tissue. Experiments now reveal that hydrostatic pressure changes generate the pushing forces that cells need to create space for division.

    • Jacob Notbohm
    •  & Brian Burkel

  • Article |

    Epithelial cells are shown to scale via a shape distribution that is common to a number of different systems, suggesting that cell shape and shape variability are constrained through a relationship that is purely geometrical.

    • Lior Atia
    • , Dapeng Bi
    •  & Jeffrey J. Fredberg

  • Measure for Measure |

    How do you define colour? Nina Meinzer casts light on the vision it takes.

    • Nina Meinzer

  • Letter |

    The cluster size distribution of cells’ progeny in developing organs is found to be universal. A new theory inspired by the physics of aerosols suggests that collective cell dynamics leads to a critical state balancing merger with fragmentation.

    • Steffen Rulands
    • , Fabienne Lescroart
    •  & Benjamin D. Simons

  • News & Views |

    The folded structure of the human brain is a hallmark of our intelligence — an optimized packing of neurons into a confined space. Similar wrinkling in brain-on-a-chip experiments provides a way of understanding the physics of how this occurs.

    • Larry A. Taber

  • Article |

    Wrinkling in human brain organoids suggests that brain development may be mechanically driven, a notion supported only by model gels so far. Evidence in this simple living system highlights roles for cytoskeletal contraction and nuclear expansion.

    • Eyal Karzbrun
    • , Aditya Kshirsagar
    •  & Orly Reiner

  • Research Highlights |

    • Andreas H. Trabesinger

  • Research Highlights |

    • Abigail Klopper

  • Letter |

    The photoactive properties of microalgae are well documented when it comes to photosynthesis and motility. But it seems their adhesion to surfaces can also be manipulated with light, which may serve to optimize their photoactive functionality.

    • Christian Titus Kreis
    • , Marine Le Blay
    •  & Oliver Bäumchen

  • Letter |

    The demonstration of a direct correlation between an optical stimulus and the biological function of a photoreceptor in living brain tissue charts the course for designing tailored pulses to control molecular dynamics in vivo.

    • Kush Paul
    • , Parijat Sengupta
    •  & Stephen A. Boppart

  • Research Highlights |

    • Federico Levi

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