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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

From chaos to order: ‘microswimmers’ form a swarm

Researchers wrangle tiny plastic spheres into imitating the synchronized swimming of a group of microbes.
Snapshots of (L-R) Swarm, Rotating Cluster, Polar Cluster and Disordered Cluster phases.

Plastic particles show decreasing organization from left to right, ranging from orderly swarm (far left) to random movement (far right). Credit: H. Karani et al./Phys. Rev. Lett.

Tiny plastic beads that are wandering aimlessly through water can spontaneously form organized swarms and clusters — just like swimming bacteria.

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Nature 575, 568 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03575-4

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