Biological sciences articles within Nature Physics

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  • Letter |

    Nonlinear inertial flows usually influence the motion of swimming organisms, but most studies focus on the tractable case of swimmers too small to feel such effects. A mechanistic principle now unifies the varied dynamics of macroscopic swimmers.

    • Mattia Gazzola
    • , Médéric Argentina
    •  & L. Mahadevan

  • News & Views |

    A cable-like ring of biopolymers helps to pull cells together across the site of a wound. Widely thought to be homogeneous, the traction forces involved are actually remarkably heterogeneous — revealing an unexpected pattern of force generation during wound repair.

    • Miranda V. Hunter
    •  & Rodrigo Fernandez-Gonzalez

  • Article |

    Wound repair is thought to involve cell migration and the contraction of a tissue-level biopolymer ring—invoking analogy with the pulling of purse strings. Traction-force measurements now show that this ring engages the tissue's surroundings to steer migration, prompting revision of the purse-string mechanism.

    • Agustí Brugués
    • , Ester Anon
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • News & Views |

    Detection of coherent energy transport has fuelled claims that quantum effects make photosynthesis more efficient. Experiments now show that the interplay between electronic and vibrational motion also sustains coherence in the subsequent charge-separation process.

    • Susana F. Huelga
    •  & Martin B. Plenio

  • Letter |

    Bacteria often reside in fluids. Now, it is shown that hydrodynamic shear, which creates forces and torques on bacterial suspensions, stimulates the attachment of bacteria to surfaces and seriously hinders chemotaxis.

    • Roberto Rusconi
    • , Jeffrey S. Guasto
    •  & Roman Stocker

  • Article |

    Biomembranes can transmit forces over cellular length scales. Now, however, their active role in generating stress is demonstrated. The adhesion and spreading of a liposome that has no active cytoskeletal machinery are shown to contract the substrate, exerting traction stresses that are comparable with those of living cells.

    • Michael P. Murrell
    • , Raphaël Voituriez
    •  & Margaret L. Gardel

  • Article |

    A study of an actomyosin active gel now demonstrates the importance of the crosslinking density of actin polymers in enabling myosin motors to internally drive contraction and rupture the network into clusters. These results could help us to better understand the role of the cytoskeleton in cell division and tissue morphogenesis.

    • José Alvarado
    • , Michael Sheinman
    •  & Gijsje H. Koenderink

  • News & Views |

    High-resolution imaging of neuronal networks reveals that spontaneous bursts of collective activity are a consequence of an implosive concentration of noise.

    • John M. Beggs

  • News & Views |

    In their search for more favourable environments bacteria choose new directions to explore, usually at random. In a marine bacterium with a single polar flagellum it is now shown that this quest is enhanced by a buckling instability.

    • Howard C. Berg

  • Letter |

    Buckling is often regarding as a form of mechanical failure to be avoided. High-speed video microscopy and mechanical stability theory now show, however, that bacteria use such processes to their advantage. Cells propelled with a single flagellum change direction with a flick-like motion that exploits a buckling instability.

    • Kwangmin Son
    • , Jeffrey S. Guasto
    •  & Roman Stocker

  • Commentary |

    The Physical Sciences–Oncology Centers in the US bring together scientists from all backgrounds to tackle some of the most important questions in cancer research.

    • David B. Agus
    •  & Franziska Michor

  • News & Views |

    Technologies aimed at single-molecule resolution of non-equilibrium systems increasingly require sophisticated new ways of thinking about thermodynamics. An elegant extension to standard fluctuation theory grants access to the kinetic intermediate states of these systems — as DNA-pulling experiments now demonstrate.

    • Jan Liphardt

  • Article |

    Short-lived kinetic states between equilibria are difficult to access experimentally, despite being crucial in many dynamical processes. Single-molecule experiments demonstrate that an extended fluctuation relation allows extraction of the free energies of these metastable states under non-equilibrium conditions.

    • Anna Alemany
    • , Alessandro Mossa
    •  & Felix Ritort

  • News & Views |

    Cells migrate en masse to generate and renew tissue — but inadequate resolution and incompatible timescales obscure the mechanism behind this migration. A unique approach reveals that stress mediates collective motion by propagating in a wave from the leading edge to the population centre.

    • Manuel Théry

  • Article |

    Tissue growth and regrowth rely on the collective migration of sheets of cells. Gradients in tension established through intercellular forces guide this migration, but the mechanism driving the gradients has remained unclear. Innovative experiments now reveal their origin—in a mechanical wave set up by sequential cell reinforcement and fluidization.

    • Xavier Serra-Picamal
    • , Vito Conte
    •  & Xavier Trepat

  • Article |

    There is growing evidence that quantum coherence enhances energy transfer through individual photosynthetic light-harvesting protein complexes. This idea is now extended to complicated networks of such proteins and chemical reaction centres. A mathematical analysis reveals that coherence lengths up to 5 nm are possible.

    • A. K. Ringsmuth
    • , G. J. Milburn
    •  & T. M. Stace

  • News & Views |

    Biological systems can adapt to changes in their environment over a wide range of conditions, but responding quickly and accurately is energetically costly. A study pins down the relationship between energy, speed and accuracy.

    • Pieter Rein ten Wolde

  • News & Views |

    Migrating cells are capable of actively opposing external forces. A study of the polymers that mediate cell motility indicates that they effect this response by branching where bent under force.

    • Anders E. Carlsson

  • Article |

    It is well known that organisms profit from adapting to their environment. A study of stochastic adaptation dynamics shows that this comes at the expense of adaptive speed and accuracy—providing a framework for understanding adaptation in noisy biological systems.

    • Ganhui Lan
    • , Pablo Sartori
    •  & Yuhai Tu

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