Browse our latest Physics of Living Systems articles

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.

Cells control signal circulation to set the frequency of information transmitted over tissue scales.

Daily administration of the farnesyltransferase inhibitor lonafarnib decreases central artery stiffness, increases distal artery vasoactivity, and improves left ventricular function consistent with increased survival in a mouse model of Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.

A practical toolbox for application of Granger causality inference to calcium imaging data identifies strong driver neurons in the locus of the mesencephalic locomoter region in larval zebrafish.