Description: Biophysics at the Microbial Scale
New paper out on B. subtilis swarming dynamics! The paper, published in Frontiers of Soft Matter , is a collaboration with Iago and Munehiro and builds on our previous paper on eLife . Here we dwell into the characterisation of the transition from a monolayer to a multilayer swarm. Turns out that this looks like a first order phase transition and can take either a “ nucleation and growth ” route or a more sudden “ spinodal ” decomposition route…
We’re excited to share our latest publication in Nature Communications , where we investigate the dynamics of mixed active-passive systems. In these systems, the passive particles are buffeted around by the active components like swimming microorganisms or synthetic active particles. These suspensions are fascinating both at a fundamental level (how can we describe/prescribe the average behaviour of the passive particles?) and -possibly- for future technological applications (directed transport at the micro
Thrilling news! On Friday Steve has successfully defended his PhD thesis! Dr. Williams, as he’s now known, endured 3h of grilling by Giorgio Volpe (UCL) and Gareth Alexander (U Warwick)… and managed to emerge reasonably unscathed 😉 Steve has gracefully agreed to keep working with us as a postdoc for the next few months. Thanks Steve!