Browse our latest Physics of Living Systems articles

Understanding how to harden liquid condensates produced by influenza A virus could accelerate the development of novel antiviral drugs.

Bacterial CRISPR immunity tracks phage mutations, creating immune diversity in bacterial populations that parallels phage genetic diversity and patterns of phage evolution that are determined by the type and degree of immune cross-reactivity in the CRISPR system.

The observed activity of the motor cortex in space and time is reproduced by a model with a specific structure of the inputs to the motor cortex.

Using self-organization, cells can collectively leverage defects in nematic and hexatic orders to localize mechanical stresses and remove an unwanted cell with their preferred path to achieve this explored here by independently tuning cell–cell and cell–substrate adhesion strengths.

Microbial cells optimally structure their proteomes in order to mutually maximize metabolism and translation, as established by an extensive comparison between data and a low-dimensional model of cellular physiology.

Continuum mechanics-based computational modeling provides insights into the interplay between cell proliferation in different zones of the developing human brain and the evolving cortical folding patterns.

Mathematical modelling, together with super-resolution imaging in Arabidopsis, demonstrates that a recently proposed coarsening model for meiotic crossover interference can explain the dynamic patterning of crossovers in many contexts, including in zyp1 and pch2 chromosome structure mutants.

Fish in the thrust wake of a flapping foil reduce tail-beat frequencies, synchronize with oncoming vortices, and swim energetically more efficiently.

When a fish beats its tail, it produces vortices in the water that other fish could take advantage of to save energy while swimming.

When running on uneven terrain, humans mostly rely on the body's mechanical response for stability instead of planning their footsteps to seek out level ground.