Browse our latest Physics of Living Systems articles

Xenopus embryos use tissue surface tension to generate hoop-stress around the blastopore to help close it during gastrulation.

Computational simulations of actin network growth at the cell leading edge, combined with careful high-speed video microscopy measurements of leading edge shape fluctuations, suggest that Arp2/3 branching of the actin network occurs at an optimal angle to minimize fluctuations.

The proposed method deciphers which low-level patterns (such as spikes) control high-level features (behavior) in relative small biological datasets, taking into account the statistical dependencies between such patterns.

Intracellular protein gradients, which are formed by the combined action of cytoplasmic diffusion and cortical transport toward the cell pole, are solely determined by cell shape.

When crowded bacterial colonies invade a closed area, flow-induced alignment creates strong radial orientation and leads to the formation of aster defects.

Quantitative proof that persistent cell migration in the timescale of hours relies on a feedback between polarized trafficking and protrusive activity stabilizing cell front.

An ecological trade-off between growth and death enables microbes with different dispersal strategies to coexist on particulate matter in the oceans.

Electrical and biomechanical stimuli directly bias cortical signal transduction and cytoskeletal waves, and the direct bias induced by an electric field develops slowly compared to the rapid surface-receptor-mediated response to chemotactic gradients.

Mitochondrial metabolic fluxes display a subcellular spatial gradient within a single mouse oocyte, and the fluxes are not controlled by nutrient supply or energy demand of the cell, but by the intrinsic rates of mitochondrial respiration.

Humans can predict and optimally plan goal-directed dynamic walking tasks that have transient events such as negotiating a sidewalk curb.