1,326 research outputs found
Viscotaxis: microswimmer navigation in viscosity gradients
The survival of many microorganisms, like \textit{Leptospira} or
\textit{Spiroplasma} bacteria, can depend on their ability to navigate towards
regions of favorable viscosity. While this ability, called viscotaxis, has been
observed in several bacterial experiments, the underlying mechanism remains
unclear. Here, we provide a framework to study viscotaxis of self-propelled
swimmers in slowly varying viscosity fields and show that suitable body shapes
create viscotaxis based on a systematic asymmetry of viscous forces acting on a
microswimmer. Our results shed new light on viscotaxis in \textit{Spiroplasma}
and \textit{Leptospira} and suggest that dynamic body shape changes exhibited
by both types of microorganisms may have an unrecognized functionality: to
prevent them from drifting to low viscosity regions where they swim poorly. The
present theory classifies microswimmers regarding their ability to show
viscotaxis and can be used to design synthetic viscotactic swimmers, e.g.\ for
delivering drugs to a target region distinguished by viscosity
Phototaxis of synthetic microswimmers in optical landscapes
Many microorganisms, with phytoplankton and zooplankton as prominent
examples, display phototactic behaviour, that is, the ability to perform
directed motion within a light gradient. Here we experimentally demonstrate
that sensing of light gradients can also be achieved in a system of synthetic
photo-activated microparticles being exposed to an inhomogeneous laser field.
We observe a strong orientational response of the particles because of
diffusiophoretic torques, which in combination with an intensity-dependent
particle motility eventually leads to phototaxis. Since the aligning torques
saturate at high gradients, a strongly rectified particle motion is found even
in periodic asymmetric intensity landscapes. Our results are in excellent
agreement with numerical simulations of a minimal model and should similarly
apply to other particle propulsion mechanisms. Because light fields can be
easily adjusted in space and time, this also allows to extend our approach to
dynamical environments.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
How "Facts" Shaped Modern Disciplines: The Fluid Concept of Fact and the Common Origins of German Physics and Historiography
This history of the concept of fact reveals that the fact-oriented practices
of German physicists and historians derived from common origins. The concept of
fact became part of the German language remarkably late. It gained momentum
only toward the end of the eighteenth century. I show that the concept of fact
emerged as part of a historical knowledge tradition, which comprised both human
and natural empirical study. Around 1800, parts of this tradition, including
the concept of fact, were integrated into the epistemological basis of several
emerging disciplines, including physics and historiography. During this process
of discipline formation, the concept of fact remained fluid. I reveal this
fluidity by unearthing different interpretations and roles of facts in
different German contexts around 1800. I demonstrate how a fact-based
epistemology emerged at the University of G\"ottingen in the late eighteenth
century, by focusing on universal historian August Ludwig Schl\"ozer and the
experimentalist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. In a time of scientific and
political revolutions, they regarded facts as eternal knowledge, contrasting
them with short-lived theories and speculations. Remarkably, Schl\"ozer and
Lichtenberg construed facts as the basis of Wissenschaft, but not as
Wissenschaft itself. Only after 1800, empirically minded German physicists and
historians granted facts self-contained value. As physics and historiography
became institutionalized at German universities, the concept of fact acquired
different interpretations in different disciplinary settings. These related to
fact-oriented research practices, such as precision measurement in physics and
source criticism in historiography
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