News & Views |
Featured
-
-
Article |
Nanoscale Turing patterns in a bismuth monolayer
Macroscale patterns seen in biological systems such as animal coats or skin can be described by Turing’s reaction–diffusion theory. Now Turing patterns are shown to also exist in bismuth monolayers, an exemplary nanoscale atomic system.
- Yuki Fuseya
- , Hiroyasu Katsuno
- & Aharon Kapitulnik
-
Letter
| Open AccessForce generation by protein–DNA co-condensation
In vitro experiments and theory reveal that a protein associated with DNA transcription mediates condensation of a protein–DNA phase via a first-order transition. The forces uncovered in the study may contribute to chromatin remodelling in the cell.
- Thomas Quail
- , Stefan Golfier
- & Jan Brugués
-
News & Views |
Past attractions set future course
Cells moving on microprinted tracks reveal a preference for regions that they have already visited, suggesting an update to a century of dynamical models for cell trajectories.
- Henrik Flyvbjerg
-
Matters Arising |
Insufficient evidence for ageing in protein dynamics
- Igor Goychuk
- & Thorsten Pöschel
-
Matters Arising |
Reply to: Insufficient evidence for ageing in protein dynamics
- Jun Li
- , Xiaohu Hu
- & Jeremy C. Smith
-
Article |
Dynamics of driven polymer transport through a nanopore
A study of the dynamics of polymer translocation through synthetic nanopores provides a direct observation of tension propagation—a non-equilibrium description of the process of unfolding that a polymer undergoes during translocation.
- Kaikai Chen
- , Ining Jou
- & Nicholas A. W. Bell
-
Letter |
Viscophobic turning dictates microalgae transport in viscosity gradients
Microswimmers tend to accumulate in regions where their speed is significantly reduced, but experimental and numerical evidence now points towards a viscophobic turning mechanism that biases certain microalgae away from high-viscosity areas.
- Michael R. Stehnach
- , Nicolas Waisbord
- & Jeffrey S. Guasto
-
News & Views |
Fatal decision made under pressure
A life-or-death choice determines the fate of reproductive cells. It has long been assumed that the choice is genetically regulated, but it now seems that the decision may instead be controlled by intracellular pressure.
- Kacy L. Gordon
-
Article |
Active phase separation by turning towards regions of higher density
Self-propelled particles are shown to orient themselves towards areas of high density, phase separating into fluid-like clusters. This behaviour is unique to active systems, forming a distinct class of motility-induced phase separation.
- Jie Zhang
- , Ricard Alert
- & Steve Granick
-
Letter
| Open AccessA hydraulic instability drives the cell death decision in the nematode germline
During the early development of an organism, some cells are fated to grow while other seemingly healthy cells die. Experiments and theory now reveal that a hydraulic instability is the key to this decision.
- Nicolas T. Chartier
- , Arghyadip Mukherjee
- & Stephan W. Grill
-
Article |
Embryonic tissues as active foams
A computational framework draws analogy with foams to offer a comprehensive picture of how cell behaviours influence fluidization in embryonic tissues, highlighting the role of tension fluctuations in regulating tissue rigidity.
- Sangwoo Kim
- , Marie Pochitaloff
- & Otger Campàs
-
-
Comment |
Instruments of change for academic tool development
Scientific progress has always been driven by the ability to build an instrument to answer a specific question. But spreading the news of how to replicate that tool is an evolving art, ripe for an open-source revolution.
- Georg E. Fantner
- & Andrew C. Oates
-
News & Views |
Life on the osmotic slopes
Gradients in the concentration of a solute can drive particle transport by inducing interfacial flows via imbalances in the osmotic pressure near surfaces. Now it seems that this mechanism is directing traffic on the cell membrane.
- Lydéric Bocquet
- & Jérémie Palacci
-
Article
| Open AccessA diffusiophoretic mechanism for ATP-driven transport without motor proteins
Protein oscillations linked to cell division in Escherichia coli are shown to localize unrelated molecules on the cell membrane via a diffusiophoretic mechanism, in which an effective friction fosters cargo transport along the fluxes set up by the proteins.
- Beatrice Ramm
- , Andriy Goychuk
- & Petra Schwille
-
News & Views |
Endless forms fabricated
The patterning dynamics of confined immiscible fluids has inspired an elegant and versatile approach to building periodic three-dimensional multi-material architectures. The technique extends to triphasic composites, three-dimensional droplet networks and even biological tissues.
- Séverine Le Gac
-
-
News & Views |
Forward thinking on backward tracing
SARS, MERS and now SARS-CoV-2 are unlikely to be the last emerging infections we face during our lifetimes. Tracing contacts both forward and backward through our heterogeneous populations will prove essential to future response strategies.
- Johannes Müller
- & Mirjam Kretzschmar
-
Article |
The effectiveness of backward contact tracing in networks
Contact tracing is key to epidemic control, but network analysis now suggests that whom you infect may not be as pertinent a question as who infected you. Biases due to contact heterogeneity reveal the efficacy of backward over forward tracing.
- Sadamori Kojaku
- , Laurent Hébert-Dufresne
- & Yong-Yeol Ahn
-
Letter |
A hierarchy of protein patterns robustly decodes cell shape information
Cells exploit protein pattern formation to perform key processes, and do so while undergoing major shape changes. Experiments and theory together reveal a shape-adaptation mechanism capable of controlling protein dynamics even as the cell deforms.
- Manon C. Wigbers
- , Tzer Han Tan
- & Nikta Fakhri
-
-
Letter |
Motility-induced fracture reveals a ductile-to-brittle crossover in a simple animal’s epithelia
Characterizing the epithelial tissue of a shape-shifting marine animal as an integrated composite material reveals a ductile-to-brittle phase transition that captures how the tissue responds to failure.
- Vivek N. Prakash
- , Matthew S. Bull
- & Manu Prakash
-
News & Views |
Nuclear espionage
Biophysicists have long sought to probe the physical properties of the cell nucleus, but the sheer size of this tiny organelle puts limits on its exploration. The coarsening of biomolecular droplets looks set to give us the inside scoop.
- Alexandra Zidovska
-
Comment |
Truth and beauty in physics and biology
Physicists and biologists have different conceptions of beauty. A better appreciation of these differences may bring the disciplines closer and help develop a more integrated view of life.
- Ben D. MacArthur
-
Article |
Chromatin mechanics dictates subdiffusion and coarsening dynamics of embedded condensates
Biomolecules in the cell nucleus form condensates at a rate slower than that predicted by the theory of droplet growth. Experiments on living cells attribute this anomalous coarsening behaviour to subdiffusive dynamics in the crowded nucleus.
- Daniel S. W. Lee
- , Ned S. Wingreen
- & Clifford P. Brangwynne
-
-
-
Article |
Mechanical feedback promotes bacterial adaptation to antibiotics
Certain bacteria cells respond to the stress of long-term exposure to antibiotics by changing their shape. Single-cell experiments and modelling cast this as a mechanical feedback strategy that makes bacteria more adaptive to surviving antibiotics.
- Shiladitya Banerjee
- , Klevin Lo
- & Aaron R. Dinner
-
Comment |
Fixed-time descriptive statistics underestimate extremes of epidemic curve ensembles
The uncertainty associated with epidemic forecasts is often simulated with ensembles of epidemic trajectories based on combinations of parameters. We show that the standard approach for summarizing such ensembles systematically suppresses critical epidemiological information.
- Jonas L. Juul
- , Kaare Græsbøll
- & Sune Lehmann
-
News & Views |
Living proof of effective defects
A class of biological matter including elongated cells and filaments can be understood in the framework of active nematic liquid crystals. Within these systems, topological defects emerge and give rise to remarkable collective behaviours.
- M.-A. Fardin
- & B. Ladoux
-
Letter |
Bacteria solve the problem of crowding by moving slowly
Bacteria are able to move as vast, dense collectives. Here the authors show that slow movement is key to this collective behaviour because faster bacteria cause topological defects to collide together and trap cells in place.
- O. J. Meacock
- , A. Doostmohammadi
- & W. M. Durham
-
Letter |
Topological defects promote layer formation in Myxococcus xanthus colonies
Topological defects in active nematic systems such as epithelial tissues and neural progenitor cells can be associated with biological functions. Here, the authors show that defects can play a role in the layer formation of the soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus.
- Katherine Copenhagen
- , Ricard Alert
- & Joshua W. Shaevitz
-
Article |
Topological defects in the nematic order of actin fibres as organization centres of Hydra morphogenesis
Topological defects in the nematic order of actin fibres in a regenerating organism are shown to be tied to key feature formation. Fibre alignment sets the regenerated body axis and defect sites form organizing centres for the developing body plan.
- Yonit Maroudas-Sacks
- , Liora Garion
- & Kinneret Keren
-
News & Views |
Chaotic worms
Animals seem capable of an infinite variety of movement, yet also exhibit substantial stereotypy in repeated actions. A beautiful view of worm behaviour now shows that the worm’s state evolves deterministically but is bounced chaotically between unstable periodic orbits.
- Jane Loveless
- & Barbara Webb
-
Article |
Theory of mechanochemical patterning and optimal migration in cell monolayers
Spatiotemporal waves appear during collective cell migration and are affected by mechanical forces and biochemical signalling. Here the authors develop a biophysical model that can quantitatively account for complex mechanochemical patterns, and predict how they can be used for optimal collective migration.
- Daniel Boocock
- , Naoya Hino
- & Edouard Hannezo
-
Letter |
Chemotaxis under flow disorder shapes microbial dispersion in porous media
Bacteria live in heterogeneous environments, so it is important to investigate their behaviour in porous media. Here the authors show that flow disorder enhances the effect of chemical gradients in micropockets in a porous medium, which then aid the transport of bacteria.
- Pietro de Anna
- , Amir A. Pahlavan
- & Ruben Juanes
-
Article |
Controlling the speed and trajectory of evolution with counterdiabatic driving
The unpredictability of evolution makes it difficult to deal with drug resistance because over the course of a treatment there may be mutations that we cannot predict. The authors propose to use quantum methods to control the speed and distribution of potential evolutionary outcomes.
- Shamreen Iram
- , Emily Dolson
- & Michael Hinczewski
-
Article |
Cooperative pattern formation in multi-component bacterial systems through reciprocal motility regulation
The authors engineer Escherichia coli into two distinct strains with tunable motility. The induced control of motility leads to the formation of patterns through a self-organizing mechanism that is specific to multi-component active systems.
- A. I. Curatolo
- , N. Zhou
- & J. Huang
-
Article |
Universal scaling laws rule explosive growth in human cancers
The authors investigate the relationship between the volume of malignant tumours and their metabolic processes using a large dataset of patients with cancer. They find that cancers follow a superlinear metabolic scaling law, which implies that the proliferation of cancer cells accelerates with increasing volume.
- Víctor M. Pérez-García
- , Gabriel F. Calvo
- & Ana M. García Vicente
-
Article |
Active mucus–cilia hydrodynamic coupling drives self-organization of human bronchial epithelium
The flow of fluid, such as mucus in the human respiratory tract, can affect biological function. Here the authors show that the hydrodynamic interactions mediated by mucus are essential for the directional coordination of ciliary beating in the lungs.
- Etienne Loiseau
- , Simon Gsell
- & Annie Viallat
-
Article |
Macromolecular crowding acts as a physical regulator of intracellular transport
The native environment of the cell is crowded by DNA, proteins and other biomolecules. Here, the authors show that crowding slows down groups of kinesin motors but has no effect on single motors.
- Guilherme Nettesheim
- , Ibtissem Nabti
- & George T. Shubeita
-
News & Views |
Stable gliding by undulating snakes
Everybody who has ever made a paper airplane and been disappointed as it spins out of control, crashing to the ground, knows how tricky achieving suitable trim and stability for gliding can be. But, somehow, wiggling flying snakes glide without tumbling.
- Jim Usherwood
-
Article |
Undulation enables gliding in flying snakes
Observations of flying snakes inform the development of a dynamical model of gliding taking undulation into account. This work suggests that aerial undulation has a different function in snakes than in other animals.
- Isaac J. Yeaton
- , Shane D. Ross
- & John J. Socha
-
Article |
Universal elastic mechanism for stinger design
The structures of stingers of living organisms are surprisingly similar despite their vastly different lengths. Now, stingers are found to obey a unifying mechanistic principle that characterizes the stingers resistance to buckling.
- Kaare H. Jensen
- , Jan Knoblauch
- & Keunhwan Park
-
News & Views |
Helpful disorder in the lungs
Microscopic motile cilia, beating in synchrony across large scales, move the liquid lining of our lungs, protecting from infection and dirt. Surprisingly, a disordered arrangement of cilia, as observed in nature, is shown to be optimal for airway clearance.
- Pietro Cicuta
-
Measure for Measure |
The katalytic speedometer
As a unit for enzyme activity, the katal is enigmatic but struggles to find widespread acceptance. Soumitra Athavale tells its story.
- Soumitra V. Athavale
-
Article |
Multi-scale spatial heterogeneity enhances particle clearance in airway ciliary arrays
Fluid flow through airways—necessary to keep lungs healthy and free from particles—occurs thanks to moving cilia. Here the authors show that defects in the arrangement of these cilia can facilitate particle clearance through the lungs.
- Guillermina R. Ramirez-San Juan
- , Arnold J. T. M. Mathijssen
- & Manu Prakash
-
-
Perspective |
Tail risk of contagious diseases
This Perspective argues that an approach called extreme value theory is appropriate for understanding the so-called tail risk of epidemic outbreaks, in particular by demonstrating that the distribution of fatalities due to epidemic outbreaks over the past 2500 years is fat-tailed and dominated by extreme events.
- Pasquale Cirillo
- & Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Browse narrower subjects
- Biochemistry
- Biological techniques
- Biophysics
- Biotechnology
- Cancer
- Cell biology
- Chemical biology
- Computational biology and bioinformatics
- Developmental biology
- Drug discovery
- Ecology
- Evolution
- Genetics
- Immunology
- Microbiology
- Molecular biology
- Neuroscience
- Physiology
- Plant sciences
- Psychology
- Stem cells
- Structural biology
- Systems biology
- Zoology